Fight From The Inside
by this-ism that-ism
Summary: Demons, hunters, superpeople, genetically-engineered soldiers, and a college campus. Throw in some firearms and this is how it goes down. Supernatural/Dark Angel/Buffyverse crossover.
1. Prologue

**Pairings:**Sam/Jess, Connor/Dawn, possibly others (romance not really the focus here, though)

**Timeline: **Ats: post "Not Fade Away"; BtVS: post "Chosen"; SPN: pre-series; DA: pre-series. It's around May of 2005 if that helps.

**Warnings: **Violence. Slightly disturbing treatment of tiny little X-5s. Minor character deaths very likely. Language.

**Summary: **Demons, hunters, superpeople, genetically-engineered soldiers, and a college campus. Throw in some firearms and this is how it goes down.

**A/N: **Holy crap, I'm finally dipping into the Dark Angel fandom and of course my first order of business is to jack canon all up. Whee! Concrit is welcome, as I'm still fairly new to the characters.

"Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear." ~Lucas, _Empire Records _

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**Prologue**

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Sam is seeking shelter when it happens.

The encroaching summer heat is the worst right now, a creeping thing that seeps into his pores and sends sizzling tendrils along his nerve endings. He's walking as quickly as his rebelling body will allow, the bright shards of sunlight slicing at his vision as he does his damnedest to coax his brain into retracting its claws. He's got a fist jammed uselessly against one temple, head bowed low and his hair cascading down like a futile awning, his eyes narrowed to the barest slits to allow a minimal amount of the bright world into his vision for navigational purposes. The quad he's just left is all freshly-mowed sweet green smells that go straight to his roiling gut, the sidewalk bustling loud with scuffing feet and chattering crowds.

It's not the first debilitating headache he's ever had, but it's the first one since he left Dad and Dean, and he'd secretly hoped they were gone for good, just some random side effect of his unhappy psyche when life was all about the hunt and constant movement. He wants nothing more than to reach his shithole of an apartment with its stealthy mold and cracked walls and blessedly dim lighting and rattling but somehow soothing ceiling fan, collapse onto his mattress face-first until his head seals itself up again. Jess has a full day of classes, so he won't have to worry about worrying her, hopes the bastard woodpecker in his brain will have flown off for more fulfilling pursuits by then.

He cuts across a parking lot and aims loosely for the waterfall sounds of traffic, everything in high, painful color that smudges clean lines into blurry edges. The asphalt is shimmering under his shuffling sneakers, his backpack slung over one shoulder like a thousand pound cross that needs bearing across the desert. He hisses at the blinding reflection of sun bouncing off the white paint of a sports car as he passes it, and suddenly a sharp, deafening staccato of firecrackers splits the air and the pain spikes to unbearable heights that threatens to send him into the black.

Sam thinks briefly, distantly, _Who the hell is lighting firecrackers in the parking lot; it's not even July yet_, just before the giant cracking sounds multiply and invite screaming friends onto the scene. His head is going to break wide open, he knows it, he feels it, he groans it as he crashes to his knees between parked aluminum beasts with his huge hands clutching at his face to keep it from flying off, something hard and hot slamming into his shoulder a split second later that ignites from the inside and sets his whole left arm ablaze.

Sam face-plants, cheek cracking hard and bright against the steaming tarmac, glowing spots dancing in his vision as something huge and warm and wet slithers beneath him. He tries to reconcile how he went from vertical to horizontal so quickly, catches the fuzzy shape of tiny little army boots clapping across the ground and heading straight for him, a baby fist clenched around a very adult-sized rifle.

Sam thinks,_ That can't be right_, and then his brain calls for intermission and drops the curtains.

It's not until much later that he'll latch onto a pattern and start to realize the thought-splintering fissure in his skull is some early warning system for freaky shit about to impose upon his personal boundaries.

-:-

Connor is loading up his car with his recently acquired spoils outside the campus library when the first shots ring out.

The heat is killer today, his shirt already running damp and his skin sheening brightly only five minutes after stepping out from the cool sanctuary of the library. The parking lot is a sea of light glinting off hot metal, and he squints against it, quickly chucking his summer's reading material into the backseat of his beat-up Camaro, eager to take refuge inside and push the temperamental a/c to its limits.

Classes are churning out their last breaths and lengthy dying wishes as the summer ushers in its smeltering academic reprieve, professors piling on lists of recommended study as they go through the final motions of lectures that aren't really lectures so much as wasting time with tic-tac-toe on the overhead projector because everyone's already gone on vacation even if their bodies are still required to park in the seats for that last leg of the race. Students are milling and strolling and happy, some already free of the the lingering clutches of attendance, some with only one or two more obligatory sessions to go.

Connor had his last jam-packed day of classes yesterday, and he's glad to have it over with for a little while. He slams the back door shut and drops behind the wheel, heated vinyl scalding through the thin material of his t-shirt as he fumbles his keys into the ignition and gets the air blasting. He waits a few minutes for the interior to cool before he'll brave sticking his unprotected hands onto the burning steering wheel, scans the crowds through the windshield idly.

His last scholastic errands over and done, the rest of his day is going to be a lazy one, he muses. Quiet time in his tiny efficiency apartment and lots of brain rest, no thinking allowed. He supposes he'll spend a good majority of the summer break imposing on Angel and the Reillys in equal doses, good for that freak-of-nature/normal-guy equilibrium, but that's not the immediate future, and doesn't bear much deliberation, because did he mention the no thinking rule?

He's drumming absently at his thighs when a huge shadow slips across his lap, attention called to the miserable-looking guy as tall as one the surrounding redwoods as he stutters by the passenger side of his car. He looks like he's holding his head up with a fist, mouth a white slash across his face. Connor frowns as the guy falters, startles when gunfire bursts across the unassuming day.

Redwood Guy drops like a sack of bricks and Connor scrambles, more rapid cracking from every direction as students shriek and and dive and scatter, some falling to avoid being hit and some falling too late to avoid anything. His heart finds a rhythm to match the erratic beats of detonated bullets as he ducks low and spills out onto the ground on his hands and knees. The hot air is suddenly thick with the scent of spraying copper, and he hears the heavy thuds of footsteps approaching, quickly skitters around the Camaro to check on the nearest victim.

The guy is lying face-down in a rapidly spreading pool of his own blood, and there's a child, no more than five or six years old by the looks of her, shaved head and huge dispassionate brown eyes and a large firearm in her grip, streaking toward him. Connor stretches up to his knees-as high as he's willing to go with the bullets still flying around-hovers over the prone form and bares his teeth at her as soon as the stench of something _not right_ hits his senses.

She stops cold, stiff and feral, too aware and calculating for someone so young. He sees her sniff the air, eyes going harder as she flicks them between him and her apparent target, then takes off running back the way she came. She's fast, a blur of motion that fades into the panicking crowd like steam in the open air.

Connor isn't going to lie. He's immensely relieved that she heeded the klaxon of warning in his posture instead of shooting some more. He doesn't know what the hell's going on, but that's not something he's going to figure out kneeling here in some stranger's blood. Connor can hear his heartbeat, slow and strong, quickly assesses the shoulder wound and decides he's going to have to risk moving him, not eager to administer aid under fire if he can help it.

Glancing behind him, he determines the straight shot to the library is clear, wrestles with the giant bleeding man and tosses him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, runs low and swift in through the double doors.

There are more people bleeding out and moaning for help outside, but Connor's in no position to assist because one, he's not bulletproof, and two, he doesn't miss the sudden outbreak of heavily-armed children in military garb popping out into the open from various hidey holes just before he clears the threshold.

-:-

Jess is skipping classes for the rest of the day. She feels she deserves the break, considering she's just been accosted.

She's sitting inside one of the campus coffee shops among the pervading aroma of java beans and baked goods, hushed conversations and excited chatter emitting from the surrounding booths and tables, the shuffle-shake and whirs of orders being processed, vanilla latte sitting unappreciated on the laminate surface before her.

Her eyes are glazed over with disbelief as she processes the fact that her bright, promising future has just been unceremoniously painted over with a dark, violent destiny. The blue eyes staring back at her from across the booth are sympathetic but in no way kidding.

Jess opens her mouth to say something, but her jaw gets stuck and just kind of hangs there, gaping and empty of speech. For two years she's had this strange little secret, but she's been doing such an admirable job of ignoring it until it went away.

Apparently, as her fellow student and undercover superperson-recruiter has just informed her, it's not going to.

"I'm a..." That's all she's able to articulate before her mouth goes dry again, and Dawn nods slowly, understanding the abandoned question and eyeing her like some wild animal that's contemplating a rabid spree of mayhem.

Dawn Summers is someone she knows only peripherally. They share a Latin class together, exchange notes now and again, not much more than that until Dawn cornered her after the lecture and led her here to pull the strings of her life all undone.

Dawn said she just found out and volunteered since she was the nearest operative. Dawn said it's not a perfect system and so many girls are still out there suffering an inexplicable influx of strength, odd dreams, and demonic hounds honing in on their newly enhanced auras. Dawn said she was sorry it took them so long to find her. What Dawn didn't say is that it's a joke, or it's reversible, or that she even has a choice in the matter.

Dawn shifts in her seat, sips at her iced mocha until the straw slurps at the bottom of the well, while Jess just stares, trying to will her into a dream apparition that will melt away like so much smoke and take the madness with her.

Dawn says, "Look, I know it's a lot—" and that's as far as she gets because someone opens fire and the windows are shattering and everyone's screaming and running and stampeding like trapped, rabid buffalo and there's sticky red flying through the air and Dawn's shouting, "Get down!" and dives under the table and snatches the leg of Jess' jeans to yank her under there with her.

The hail of gunfire doesn't stop, seems to come from everywhere at once. Glass keeps breaking, wood keeps chipping and sending splintered debris everywhere, the screams are spreading and scattering and interspersed with sobs, and Jess' life-altering moment has just been stomped all over with this more immediate life-threatening terror.

She flinches and jams her hands against her ears, doesn't resist when Dawn pulls her close and shrinks them both away from the open end of the table toward the wall, and all Jess can think about now is, _Sam, oh God, where's Sam?_ because he had to talk to one of his professors about something and then he was supposed to meet her between classes for lunch.

This startling image bursts clear and bright in her mind: Sam mowed down by bullets in bloody, agonizing slow motion; he's so huge they can't miss, and Jess is freaking out and not a little pissed, something deeply primal and possessive called to the surface.

Dawn's wriggling around in the cramped space, frees a cell phone from her pocket and stabs at it with her thumbs, face baring the same kind of fear for someone not here. Jess tugs out her own phone, dials Sam, and gets nothing but hissing static.

Both girls pull the devices from their ears as one, staring at them in consternation as if sheer force of will can magic them into some better shade of cooperative.

"Oh my God, they're just little kids!" someone shouts, and someone else adds, "They're homicidal kids with big guns, stay the hell down!"

Jess looks at Dawn, mysterious girl with all the freaky information, and says, "What the hell?"

Dawn shrugs, confused and thoughtful at the same time, replies, "I don't know," and Jess is kinda upset she's not even trying to make her feel better anymore.

-:-

Lydecker is appalled.

He's ensconced safely in the unassuming unmarked van angled along a row of shops just on the edge of campus, watching the live footage with a purpling face and a thick vein throbbing dark blue and ominous just above his lowered brows. He's cramped up next to two of his underlings, all of them clad in civvies for the mission that was supposed to go quick and quiet under the radar and _not draw attention_.

"What the hell are they doing?" he demands, voice blowing up the small space and causing his soldiers to flinch.

The console is packed with tiny monitors, each rectangle revealing a flurry of utter madness: running, stray gunfire, civilians exploding red and flopping to the ground, rushing grass and blurry bird's-eye views from rooftops and complete radio silence from his kids as one of his lieutenants tries to raise them and pass along the question.

This is not how it's supposed to happen at all. It's chaos. Lydecker commands respect, fear, _order._ He loathes chaos. His chest is tight and thundering a low, building rage as, one by one, the cameras plummet to the ground and the screens go white with crackling snow.

"They're stomping the feed!" he realizes, that vein pulsing just a bit harder. "What the fuck? What the fucking _fuck_?" He turns to his flabbergasted second in command with this volcanic inquiry, receives a nervous shrug in response.

"Get out there, you sack of shit!" Lydecker barks, jerking an arm at the van's doors. "Haul 'em back in before the whole damn world gets here! Damage control, move!"

Both men scramble to obey, unable to slink and stumble out of the vehicle fast enough. Lydecker takes a deep breath as the doors slam shut, looks back at the now useless monitors. It's too late for containment, he knows, can already hear the sirens and picture the news vans following the scent of tragedy like bloodthirsty wolves, and his whole mission is about to go nationwide and draw the wrong kind of attention.

"Fuck!" he hisses, eyes flashing yellow as he bangs an impotent fist against the console.

-:-

Dean is lounging in a motel somewhere off I-10 in the scorching-middle-of-nowhere Texas when the news comes on.

The window unit is coughing extra hard, protesting its abuse as he sprawls shirtless on one of the beds, idly flipping channels. John is hunched at the table, cleaning weapons relentlessly out of boredom because the flimsy rumor of a haunted highway turned out to be heat mirages in a town with too many old people sensitive to that kind of thing. John's got that extra helping of grouchy going on thanks to the combination of wasted time, sticky heat, and no new leads to follow.

The hunt has been slow lately, and it hasn't served to improve Dean's quality of life as Sam's absence sits in the space between them like a huge, sucking void with nothing to distract from it. Neither of them is keen to venture back out into the day until the sun fades a little lower and takes its fire with it, so they're twiddling their thumbs until a newspaper or a ringing phone beckons them elsewhere.

Dean gives up the channel-surfing and braves the stain-riddled, threadbare carpet with bare feet, ferrets his dad's laptop from their things and returns to the bed. Boredom is bad for him in too many ways to count, and he's eager to find anything to chase after, even another rumor.

The television is a bunch of annoying background prattle, and he raises his eyes as the laptop boots up, frowns at the talk show he left it on: blubbering, jilted exes and paternity tests. He reaches for the remote again just as the show is unceremoniously hurtled through with spinning text and the breaking news soundtrack of doom.

John looks up from his methodical task, interest briefly piqued at the serious faces of the newscasters, and then they start blathering on about school shootings and mass panic.

When the anchor blurts the name of the well-known and highly-coveted ivy league school in disbelief, Dean's heart stops in his chest, wide eyes immediately seeking out his father's.

John surges to his feet and starts tossing things into duffels, face hard and dark, and Dean quickly follows suit, not even bothering to get dressed as he runs around, fumbling through one pocket for his cell phone and cramming it against his ear without pausing.

There's no answer.

The television is still blaring, room key flat on the table, the door wide open as they practically leap into the Impala and haul ass for the interstate.


	2. If You Negotiate The Minefield In The Dr

**If You Negotiate The Minefield In The Drive**

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The shooting has tapered off, and there are too many windows.

The coffee shop is three walls of windows from waist to ceiling, and they're all shattered, some with jagged teeth hanging on, sunlight punching through and casting an incongruous lemonade shine over everything, chasing away the shadows.

It's exposure Dawn isn't comfortable with in the least. She has to get everyone away from the windows.

But there are bodies.

Too many bodies, and too many pools of thick fluids, just spilled out all over like the lives they supported were nothing more than an accidental knock away from a tipped glass. So many glasses emptied, the eyes are glass and fixed and staring, and nothing can fill them ever again; put them on the shelf, they're done.

But she has to get everyone away from the windows, because the continuous barrage has ceased but there are still sporadic little explosions that explain the show must go on to its gorier end. There are still gunners roaming the sidewalks, seeking out the mice and spitting bullets into them. Someone said children, but Dawn can't reconcile children with this disaster. It's doesn't fit: square pegs, round holes.

She has to flee the gaping windows. She doesn't want to see children. She doesn't want to fight or kill children.

"We have to get away from the windows," she informs Jess, who is still cowering close and tight with her beneath the table, looking about as eager to scoot outward and view the full extent of the damage as she is. "I'm gonna go check the back, make sure it's safe."

Jess shifts, nods jerkily with a burst of a sigh. "Okay."

It took a long minute of shock for it to settle in, but it's there now, this stark unmovable reality where people are dead all around them and others are grieving and crying and terrified. There are muffled sobs behind whitened hands, trying to stay quiet, stay low, stay invisible, and Dawn's own hands are trembling a little as she extricates herself from the tangle her and Jess have made, crawls forward so slowly and rises just a little, upright and on two feet, not crawling, but hunched below the window line.

The smell hits her then. It's the baking vomit in a pool of sunlight, sprawled out next to another booth that shelters two frightened female students and a hopelessly slumped shape that will never drink coffee with her girlfriends again. It's the puddles of coffee and blood spreading out underneath a guy who never saw what hit him, his limbs flopped out wide in the middle of the floor, scalp blown back like a flip-top of flesh and hair. It's fear and sweat and used copper and brain matter, sloppy and wriggly and a sort of dusky pink in slimy rivers of crimson... it's someone's thinking parts, all splayed ruins.

Dawn gags, turns her face into the pristine vinyl of an empty booth and crouches there, fighting bile and the blurring lens of tears, mouth pressed hard into her fist.

She's seen it all before—carnage and countless aftermaths—but she'll never get used to it, and if she ever gets used to it she'll pack her bags and make tracks and never look back.

And she's afraid. She's not ashamed to admit it. She knows things and she's seen things, but she will die just as easily and messily as the next person on the wrong end of a gun, and just like the next person, she doesn't want to die. Not at all. This is the real kind of dead, not mystical and not temporary, but irreversible and senseless. Like Tara.

She's quaking so hard now, thinking of that other shattered window and that other emptied glass that she _knew_, she knew her laugh and the sound of her tears and the warmth of her hugs, and there are others she knows somewhere so far away but nor far enough because the campus is so big and they could be anywhere, maybe really dead and maybe not, and Buffy. Holy freaking crap, Buffy will come when she finds out and Dawn can't let that happen because Buffy is not faster than a speeding bullet and Dawn won't do that again, absolutely refuses, she has to be out of this before that happens and she has to pull it together, has to check the back.

Another short drumroll of shots close by, and someone gasps, "Oh, god! They're coming!"

"They're not coming yet," Dawn whispers loudly to the girls huddled beneath the booth in front of her, like she can make it true by saying it. They look back at her, gaping rabbit eyes seeking a defending carnivore in the bloody free-for-all, and Dawn schools her features into something firmer, assuring in its assertiveness. "They're not here yet, but you have to keep quiet."

They nod desperately, lips flattened colorless on sallow, ashen faces, don't say anymore.

More gunfire, a quick one-two somewhere across the quad, and Dawn needs a weapon.

She had one class, hadn't even bothered to take her bag because it was one hour of loitering in a lecture hall and she was planning to surprise Connor; it was broad daylight and huge crowds, and Connor is a weapon so she didn't think she needed any. But then she got the text about the Slayer on campus and promised to talk to her, and she should've known better. A Summers without a small arsenal attached to her person is a blaring invitation for trouble; one hour, one minute, doesn't matter. Things can go rotten in seconds. She's been letting Connor's perpetual aura of safety spoil her is what it is, but that's something to lament about later.

She takes a gulping breath, careful not to breathe through her nose, looks up and around, eyes catching and skittering away from the smears of blood everywhere, trying to make it fade into the background, like rubber guts on a movie set. It's not working, but there are knives and things behind the counter, she remembers, because there was a girl in front of her when she ordered, and the barista handed her a gooey brownie that she had to cut from the tray.

Dawn starts forward again, skirting the dead limbs as best she can and her sneakers are not slipping around in blood and guts, _they're not_. She finds the little swinging half-door and pushes through, and there's the barista, eyes wide and gone, feet tangled up together like she'd been trying to turn and run at the same time, chest blasted red. She looks like a porcelain doll, all white-skinned and dark-haired and dropped from her shelf.

Dawn needs to stop looking so hard, needs to stop thinking these things.

She sees the knife. It's long and sharp and smeared with chocolate. It's still in her hand.

She swallows thickly, takes another shaky breath and crawls forward. The fingers are cooling and held fast, and Dawn can't stop the trail of hot moisture on her cheeks or the persistent clench in her chest as she grimaces and pries them loose. The knife hits the bloodied tile with a wet chink, and she flinches, picks it up before she can change her mind because of the red. She'll just... not look at it.

She holds it in her fist, sets her sights on the door that leads into the back, and the knees of her jeans are damp but she's not going to look at that, either.

Something scurries and claps down on her shoulder and she spins, knife high in the air, eyes blown wide, bites her tongue against the scream. Jess' hand locks around her wrist to stop the weapon's momentum before either of them can blink, and she spews apologies even as she looks surprised at her own reflexes.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, are you okay, I'm sorry." Jess slowly releases Dawn's wrist and regards her carefully, afraid and worried and a little pale, resolutely not looking at the body, but she's unerringly determined, too. It's a Slayer in the trenches of battle. Dawn knows the look intimately.

Jess still has her cell phone in one hand, has so far refused to give up on dialing out every few minutes, and she's crouching right in Dawn's personal bubble with her valiant air and sunny blond hair all frazzled, but it's not like Dawn minds; it's comforting and familiar and she will take it.

Dawn realizes she's still frozen in that defensive position and drops her arm, tries to relax a little. "I'm fine. It's. It's okay. What are you doing?"

It's a stupid question. Hello. Slayer. It's her literal calling in life to go where the danger is and not to hide under a table, Dawn knows this. But everything's weird and somehow more real than demons with rubbery skin and giant swords, vampires in ridiculously large hotels who always need research at the most inopportune times, and it's another of those square pegs, this superhero business in the middle of regular-person mayhem.

Jess shrugs uneasily and says, "I should have a weapon, huh?" looks around and sharpens her gaze on a hefty-looking stool set off beside the espresso pump. "I've been such a klutz, ya know?" she whispers anxiously as she shuffles over to it, and Dawn's grateful for the sound to focus on that's not crying and scared. "Since, um, since the thing. 'Cause I keep forgetting, even though it's stupid. I mean, how do you forget you woke up Wonder Woman one day? But I manage it somehow when I'm trying to, ya know, do ordinary things." She's upending the stool and yanking at one of the steel legs. "I break so much stuff, and Sam keeps asking me what my obsession is with new doorknobs and furniture, and I just let him think it's like a girly quirk for decoration even though all our stuff is garage sale crap." She cinches her lips and yanks hard, the leg of the stool bending and snapping, and she turns with a grimly victorious smirk and wiggles it. "But I guess I get to break stuff on purpose now."

Dawn returns the smirk, feels it wobble. "Yeah, there's plenty of intentional breakage," she confirms, not expanding on the bone-crunching detail of it. Jess is trying to reconcile her changed future in a horrifying situation, and it's admirable that she's not completely freaking out. Dawn kind of envies that inherent strength sometimes. "It sucks you had to find out like this, but there's... there are people that know what you're going through better than me, and it doesn't always have to be blood and horror. You can have a life." This is the standard spiel, but it's not just lip service, it's true. It's true and it's well-charted territory.

Dawn turns as Jess sidles up next to her again, and Jess says, "You seem to understand it well enough."

Dawn shakes her head, breathes a little laugh. "You can't understand it all the way unless you've lived inside of it. I haven't, but I've seen, and this one time I thought I might be... It doesn't matter." She's getting disconnected and stilted as the strangeness of everything seeps back in, bites her lip and stares at the door. "We should be quiet now. Stealthy."

"Right. Personal crisis, back burner." Jess nods. "Check."

They stop talking and Dawn creeps forward, knife securely in her grip as she nudges the swinging door back and scans the room. It's dirtier tile and stacked boxes, walk-in freezers, utility shelves of beans and pastries and ingredients, a break table against the far wall with chairs scattered around it and a little television sitting on one end, and no bodies or blood. Everything's normal back here, untouched by pointless, tragic violence, and Dawn feels like she can breathe a little better.

She motions with a hand for Jess to check the freezers and behind the shelves on one side while Dawn checks the office in the opposite corner. She'll have to find the back door, too, barricade it.

They straighten as soon as the door swings shut again, no windows back here. Dawn sneaks and starts at insignificant sounds and ultimately determines the office is just a messy desk and file cabinets, an outdated computer and no sinister gunmen laying in wait.

She can't think about gunmen, or gun_children_, because it doesn't make any sense yet. Schools get shot up by disgruntled staff or students, but the students here are not small or knee-high, and children shouldn't think about guns or how they work or their potential to take lives, much less carry them. There's something woefully wrong with that, she knows, but the specifics are not something she's sure she wants. She'll have to, though. She'll have to find out why children and why Stanford and what might be lurking behind innocent masks.

But not right now. Right now, she has to meet Jess halfway, and Jess has to tell her she found the back entrance and Dawn has to say, "Barricade it with the heaviest things you can find." Jess has to nod, and Dawn has to go back out into the broken-glass arena and usher the survivors into the marginally safer space.

She has to do all that, and she does, and now she's looking at a huddled group of college students and one sweaty older guy in tweed that has to be a professor. There are four girls and five guys, not including her and Jess. Eleven people all together, eleven people that didn't die out of the thirty or so that had to have been in the shop when it all started.

One of them is injured, a flesh wound, she determines, a chunk of his bicep taken off by speeding ammunition. She tends to it, uses towels and a strip off an apron to keep pressure on the steadily oozing flow.

Jess makes use of all the shelves and boxes, stacking them high and wide in front of both doors, then the filing cabinets and desk, and then they're just a scared group in a big room with nothing but a flimsy table to rally around, and Dawn needs something else to do.

So she gives Jess her phone as Jess settles in a chair and fusses with her own cell some more, resolutely not paying attention to the wary stares she's getting for having carted heavy things around effortlessly.

Dawn says, "Connor. Keep trying him, too."

She swallows as Jess lifts a brow in askance, can't think of Connor's mischievous hands, or his laugh against her hair, can't remember his smile that's all teeth or his smart-ass smirk that makes her want to hit him and jump his bones at the same time. Can't think that maybe that's all she has now, these pictures in her head, all of his quirks and touches trapped in memory that she won't be able to reach out for with her hands ever again, because he's strong and he's brave and he's resourceful but he's not bulletproof.

She turns back to the group looking all skittish and loose, some pacing, some sat fidgeting and grieving, no longer locked together in bonding fear as they feel a false sense of security in the new location. They're still scared, but they're also impatient, cornered animals that are just remembering they have this baser survival instinct that's unthinking and desperate, a life of safe books and loving families to get back to. It could get ugly, terrified people with idle hands, so Dawn pulls out her own chair and plops it in the center of the room.

"I need to know what you all saw and heard so we can figure out what's going on." She sounds authoritative, confident, and that's good. That will engender cooperation a lot better. She throws up a hand to stop the chorus of opening mouths. "One at a time."

They listen and obey, glad for order in the chaos, gather in chairs and on the floor. She starts with a dark-skinned guy in faded jeans and a vintage Beatles tee whose name is Clark, and Clark saw tiny tin soldiers all in a row, cold eyes and no hearts, picking off the ducks with merciless intent...

-:-

Jess doesn't feel well.

She doesn't feel sick, or bad, really. Just wrong.

There's been this low buzz beneath her skin since this whole, crazy thing began, but now it's escalating, making her twitchy.

"I got something!" Greg says victoriously, uninjured hand hovering over the television he's been fiddling with for the past twenty minutes like he's got the magic fingers of reception.

It's been pulled toward the center of the long table, and it's fritzing in and out, but there are distinguishable voices and pictures now as everyone gathers around it with fearful, hopeful expressions.

The outside world. It's weird, hasn't even been a whole two hours since the first shot, but the world has been inarguably divided: us in here and them out there, and us in here have been dying to know what them out there are doing to erase that divide. They've heard the sirens, and they've heard the sporadic gunfire still going on.

Jess scoots her chair back a little so she can see, fingers sliding over the buttons of her phone on autopilot. All the electronics have been fussy, not just the phones, and she hopes this means—

It doesn't. The phone is still spitting static in her ear.

Greg's the nerdy jock with the flesh wound, right arm held stiff and close to his middle, the sleeve of his shirt all bunched up above makeshift bandaging. He's good with electronics, he told them, so Dawn assigned him the T.V., and now he's infinitely proud of himself as she and her group of food-gatherers come over, all straight-backed, no-sinking-on-my-watch-captain-of-the-ship determination, gives him an approving smirk.

Jess admires the way she's taken charge and made the effort to calm everyone, gives them tasks and busywork so they'll feel useful and not futile, even though she's clearly mindless with worry herself. Jess' job is still the phones and a vague directive to _keep her feelers out_, which she didn't get until now, with the twitching.

They keep the volume low, and everyone's holding their collective breath and watching the stuttering screen raptly, listening to the field reporter's static-y account of the outsider's perspective: unknown number of unidentified assailants, dozens upon dozens of recovered bodies, witnesses who got out just in time and a small group of rescued survivors currently being questioned (Jess' heart kicks at this, but they don't give names, and she can't know if Sam made it out), the extensive perimeter that's been thrown up around the campus, and words like tragic, senseless, heartbreaking.

It's not exactly helpful information, which leads Jess to believe the authorities have yet to construct a solid extraction plan.

Dawn seems to agree, mouth twisted in a frown. "Keep an eye on that," she tells Greg, who nods distractedly, eager gaze glued to the screen. "Lemme know if they say anything important, like where exactly the blockades are and stuff. We need to know where the safe ground is." She turns away and walks over to Jess, shirt all rumpled and jeans spattered in blood, hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, squats down next to her and relaxes the authoritative air a notch.

"I feel weird," Jess admits immediately, because she doesn't know what that means. Dawn's the one with the superhero handbook here, even if she insists she's not a super-anything, just a girl with too much brain in her head.

"Weird how?" Dawn presses, voice carefully pitched beneath the earshot of the crowd.

"Like my skin itches, but not really." Jess bites her lip, shrugs. "It's shocky, or tingly, or something."

_Ever so eloquent_, she thinks sourly at herself, making a face. But it's not like this whole destiny revelation isn't upsetting enough without all the hiding from the Children Of The Damned, so she's allowed to be a little confused and uncertain. She's had a couple of years to get used to being a freak, of hiding it from everyone because she didn't want to get locked up or experimented on or anything, and now she's just getting the other pieces of the puzzle, the how and why, so she thinks she's handling this pretty well despite everything, if she does say so herself.

"Did it just start or has it been like that for a while? 'Cause I put up some wards." Dawn's looking up at her, scrutinizing like she can x-ray and dissect what she refers to as 'Spidey senses' from the right angle.

"That's what all that muttering to yourself was about?"

Dawn shrugs, nods. "It's not much, a very last-minute warning system, but it'll throw anything supernatural out of whack for a minute. Kinda like a magic taser."

Dawn already told her she's pretty sure they're dealing with something supernatural, given the other's accounts of blurry speed and leaping buildings in a single bound.

"Huh," is Jess' intelligent response. The whole magic and monsters thing is still unreal to her, this distant thing she can examine and deal with later, because it's not like she can just accept it even with the evidence of superstrength and weird tickling senses. She's been a master of denial and covert ops with Sam for the past year of their relationship, always putting it off, no need to tell him anything until she's sure of this commitment level or that tolerance level, justifies it with him being odd and secretive about basically his whole life before college. She knows intimately the ever elusive _later_ is her friend. "I don't think it's that. It just started a few minutes ago."

Dawn furrows her brows, straightens and eyes the blocked entrances warily. "That's not good."

Jess goes stiff. "You hear that?"

"What?"

She strains to listen over the muted sounds of the television, and Dawn seems to read her mind, hisses quickly, "Turn that off!" mimes zipping her lips and motions for the others to take cover.

The group is suddenly this silently pulsing thing of hammering fear, shaky hands and wide eyes, scuffling quickly into the tiny office. Greg gestures for Clark to help him, and they unplug and abscond with the television before closing themselves in.

There are slowly crunching footsteps, light treads over broken glass. Jess is sort of taken over by instinct, fear trampled down and vigilance soaring up the flag pole. She points at the door, mouths, "Someone's in the shop," and Dawn nods, pulls the knife from her belt loop while Jess picks up the pole at her feet and stands.

They move swiftly, silently, to either side of the door and its stacked obstacles, backs against the wall and weapons at the ready. Jess' heart is visiting her throat for a little while, but she thinks she's got this, something deep down whispers that she's got this, nothing she can't handle, so she chooses to believe it because it's more appealing than freaking right the hell out.

The footsteps stop.

The filing cabinet shoots across the room and smashes into the table by no visibly compelling force whatsoever. The shelves and boxes skid apart and topple over one another with deafening crashes and clatters. Something comes barreling full-throttle through the door and Jess reacts, swings hard and hits the blur with a solid thwack that increases its momentum and sends it skidding and sprawling across the floor with an animal scream. A rifle drops and bounces away with a thunderous crack that rains down plaster from the ceiling before it settles, startled squeals from behind the office door at the ruckus, and the screeching doesn't stop as the child lays there convulsing and flailing like a live wire.

"It's the spell," Dawn explains as she dashes to retrieve the gun, knife stuffed back through her belt loop and the large weapon turned on its owner. "You're gonna have to hold her until he we know what we're dealing with." She's apologetic but firm.

Jess' heart is thundering, but she complies, keeps the pole in her grip and skids on her knees to the child's side.

She wrestles with the writhing girl—it looks like a girl even with the shaved head, thick lashes and full lips, honeyed skin that's so smooth and so _young_—gets her arms pinned behind her and presses her face-down onto the floor as gently as she can because she's such a little thing. She's agonized and screaming, splitting Jess' heart in two, little gray fatigues disturbingly splotched with blood.

Jess holds her there, careful knee in the small of her back, doesn't want to kill her, looks up with wet brown eyes and pleads with Dawn not to give that order or anything like it. Dawn swallows, obviously affected by the size and age as well, though the barrel of the rifle is still trained on the child as she gasps and trembles out the final effects of the spell.

The girl stops screaming for a beat only to start up again, but this time it's black and hateful instead of pained. "Geddoff, bitch!" She twists and thrashes violently, strong but not stronger than Jess, apparently, though she's pretty sure she's faster what with the blurring so she knows she can't let go. "Gonna rip your fuckin' throat out! Leggo!"

"Well, since you asked so nicely," Jess drawls evenly, surprised at her own calm because she actually feels pretty tremulous. "No." She's got a good grip on her wrists, tightens her hold with a wince of sympathy, looks up at Dawn again. "Something's wrong with her," she hedges, trying to pinpoint it. The girl is buried in a thick cloud of something viscous and nauseating, disjointed somehow, disharmonious. "She feels like sick fear and dark rage," is the best way she knows how to put it. "That doesn't really go together, does it?"

Dawn looks at her funny. "Sometimes," she says distractedly, biting her lip.

"What?" Jess asks defensively, unsettled by the crazy eye she's getting.

"Nothing, it's just... you feel her?"

"Yeah, I guess. Sort of. It's like a smell but not... I dunno. She's kinda choking me." Jess twitches uncomfortably under the continued scrutiny. "That's normal, right?" She hopes. "I mean, it's not normal because none of this is exactly normal, but it's normal for my particular brand of abnormal. Right?"

Dawn shakes her head slowly. "I don't think so." She's contemplative for a second. "But some Slayers have different things, so don't freak out, okay?" she rushes to add at Jess' admittedly freaked-out expression. "Some have prophetic nightmares or dream-walky... stuff. And there's this one girl who can kinda predict the future by a few seconds, handy in a fight but not for much else."

Jess doesn't exactly feel better, but okay, fine. She'll flip out later. There are priorities. "What do we do with her?"

The her in question is still pitching a fit, spewing vitriol and spittle everywhere, and that's when Jess notices it. "Look at this," she says, keeping her prisoner secure as she glares down at the marking, wholly disturbed by what it implies.

Dawn edges over, cautiously skirting the scrabbling and slamming limbs, peers down with a frown. "What the hell?"

It's a fair question. This kid is tattooed with a bar code, like she's some sale item waiting to be passed over the checkout counter. Like she's marketable goods. Property.

Then, as abruptly as she started, the girl stops flailing, goes rigid and drops her face onto the tile. "Please stop it," she sighs out so quietly and shakily that they have to strain to hear her. Her voice is high and tiny, body taut and strained and quivering, and Jess' chest clenches.

The girl jerks a few times, suddenly resumes her violent fit and growling curses. "Fuck you! Fuck you, geddoffame!"

Jess is extremely confused, glances to Dawn. "What's wrong with her eyes?"

Dawn lowers the rifle, staring piteously down at her, gaze wide and blue and endlessly compassionate but, most of all, baffled. "I have no idea."


	3. Beat The Dogs And Cheat The Cold Electro

**Beat The Dogs And Cheat The Cold Electronic Eyes**

* * *

Redwood Guy's shoulder is a mess, a glistening white piece of collarbone peeking out like a snapped twig, but it looks like the bullet tore straight through the other side after mangling all the flesh it could touch at high velocity, so that's one good thing. No shrapnel to dig out.

Connor's hands are smeared and slippery as he applies pressure, fashions bandaging and a makeshift sling from the shirt he had to rip off the guy. He's still unconscious, prone and docile in the middle of the librarian's office floor.

The single entrance is barricaded with the heaviest book-loaded shelf Connor could drag in and fit through the door after he'd decided the library was simply too huge and labyrinthine to defend properly. And there were too many windows. Huge, hulking windows revealing them to the enemy.

The inside of the building is mostly untouched by the chaos, the students that had been inside confused and horrified at the blasting sounds and the bloody giant Connor had come barreling in with. They're all crammed into the neatly-kept office now, about twenty people in all, and they're mostly chilled the fuck out after Connor had to hit one hysterical dude for trying to push him back outside like he was inviting the homicidal maniacs in with his mere presence, or as chilled as they can be under the circumstances.

Except that guy over in the corner who keeps gagging and gasping at Connor as he works. Connor told him not to watch, but he doesn't seem to have any sense.

"Oh, God, that's—oh, God." The guy turns, folds and pukes as Connor nudges the broken ends of bones back down a little bit, sets it the way it's supposed to look, then shrugs off his own shirt to bandage the craggy holes it punched through.

The sound of puking is disgusting; Connor's always hated it, and he grits his teeth. His cell phone's not working (no one's is), there were so many people plunging and dying and writhing outside, Dawn's not in his line of sight, his parents are probably freaking out, Angel's probably flipping his shit and beating things up in the sewers for the traitorous fact of the sun being up, and it all serves to make him crankier, not conducive to diplomacy.

"Shut the fuck up," he bites out, eyes firmly on his busy hands.

God, that wreaks, the wet choking sounds are irritating but his order has a purpose, too. He's trying to listen, and the breathing and whispering is loud enough without the upchuck soundtrack over there.

There's been movement on the roof for the past ten minutes or so, and he's trying to keep tabs on it.

Vomit Guy finally cuts it out and keeps his spectacled gaze elsewhere, heeding the dangerous rigidity in Connor's posture. He knows he probably freaked everyone out when he basically lifted hundreds of pounds of bookcase onto his back and strolled with it over to the office like it was nothing more than a bulky backpack, but he doesn't have time to care about secret identities right now, and he doesn't care if it makes the panicking mob cower and tremble when he gets pissy.

Connor doesn't handle fear well himself, never has. He has memories of a hellish place and reigning dominion, chasing its nightmare inhabitants to other dimensions in terror. There was no room for fear because that world honed in on the scent, gobbled up its source without compunction, and Connor didn't want to be gobbled. So he learned to create fear in other things, learned to be the thing that honed and hunted.

Being here in this office and not running out to raze the enemy and find what's his, what they better not fucking touch or even look at funny, it's not sitting right. Add to that, he doesn't know exactly what he's dealing with, and the room starts to close in around him, making it hard to fume properly.

He's going to have to come up with a better plan soon, go out there and gather more intel before he vents on the wrong hapless victim in a more devastating way. A bulletproof vest would be nice, though.

Connor finally finishes up with his patient, sighs and looks around as he wipes his gory hands on his jeans. People are lined up all against the walls, crouching and hugging, a big clump taking refuge behind the huge oak desk. Their fear is pungent and overwhelming, makes him want to chase them up a tree. He's aware he's not the best person for leadership here, but he's all there is.

Just as he opens his mouth to try for some kind of reassurance, Redwood Guy gasps sharply and jackknifes, eyes blown wide and shocked with the sudden invasion of what has to be excruciating pain. "Fuck! Oh, ow, fuck! Shit!" He hisses and screws his face down, eyes clinched into straight lines.

Connor gently pushes him back down, says, "You probably shouldn't move around so much."

The guy's trembling with anguish he can't will away but complies, lays back down with a curt nod. "Yeah. That's smart," he gets out through grit teeth, features tight and eyes clouding with confusion as he tries to reconcile where he is and why his whole left side is on fire. "What— fuck," he breathes tremulously, bites the inside of his cheek, which is swollen and black from where he rudely introduced his face to the asphalt. "What the hell?" he manages.

Connor frowns. He's not good with comforting victims: examine his horde of ungrateful damsels that can't cringe far enough away from him. "You got shot," he says plainly. "We're kinda like hostages, I guess. Kids with guns? Any of this ringing a bell?"

The guy squints in thought, shakes his head, pauses. "I thought I saw a hand, um, a little hand." He looks to Connor with better focus. "I wasn't seeing things?"

"You were seeing real things," Connor confirms, shrugs.

He grunts thoughtfully, gaze going distant for a short minute. This whole complicated process of information absorption, reactive emotion, and contingencies flits across his face in fast forward. The dude is quick as hell on the uptake, Connor thinks as his face settles into a pensive scowl, doing his damnedest to relegate the bright pain to a pesky peripheral thing with his mouth and eyes pinched.

"Think you can tell me everything you saw?"

Connor doesn't have a better idea at the moment, so he nods.

He tells him about the phones, the girl with the rifle, the strange feeling he got from her (not much detail on scents or anything like that, because Connor kinda likes that this guy's not eyeing him like Godzilla on a collision course for Japan), how fast she moved, and his brief glimpse of the children's military precision. He's not holding back on freaky details because that helps no one, they need to know what they're up against so they don't do anything retarded, and plans can't be effectively laid with only half the intel. The erratic beats of distant gunfire don't hurt his credibility as he talks.

Of course, Vomit Guy is ever so helpful, pipes up from his scared twist in the corner to add Connor's freakish shows of strength and rudeness to the tale, like Mr. Redwood is going to swoop in with his mauled shoulder and save them all from bad manners.

The guy listens, narrows his eyes on him, and Connor huffs, throwing a glare at Vomit Guy to convey his unending appreciation. "I save puppies and crap, let's leave it at that, okay? If I wanted to hurt anyone," he smirks coldly, "I totally woulda done it by now without even breaking a sweat."

They stare each other down for another minute before the guy seems to remember he's in no condition to challenge a preternaturally strong opponent. His face gives a little, and he says resignedly, bitterly, "My backpack. I need it." He pats awkwardly at his pocket with his good hand while he waits for Connor to follow through on that, finds his cell phone and tries it for himself.

Connor hesitates, lingering on how Redwood Guy is accepting this all a little too easily, while the others have already had their turns at calling him crazy and are muttering more things in that vein even now. The guy just looks back with the phone jammed against his ear, brow cocked and impatient, and Connor leans up and snatches the bag off the desk, the thing having hung onto his huge frame for all it was worth until Connor finally untangled it.

At his behest, he helps get the guy upright with more loud cursing and a dangerous second where he looks too white and nauseous, props him against the desk, and shoves the bag into his lap.

"Can you handle a gun?" He's wrestling with the pack one-handed, looks a little mad at himself. A distrustful glance upward clues Connor in to the fact that he's still wary of him and enormously pissed that he needs to rely on someone strange and new and _unclassified_ for backup, even if he obviously patched him up when he could have just left him to bleed out.

It's shitty, but it's just that kind of situation, and they both know it.

Connor makes a face, shakes his head. "Not really my forte."

"Are knives your forte?"

"I'm good with knives," he agrees, perking up. Weapons are always good, never mind the fact that this guy seems to have a small armory in his backpack. He can forgive the mysterious danger vibe given his own, and of course, the generously gifted, wickedly curved blade. "So, you have a puppy fondness, too, huh?" Connor observes.

He cocks a sour smirk, tugs out a handgun and tucks it into his waistband. "Something like that."

"Awesome." And it is. It's spectacular. Connor has a bad-ass stabbing implement and one other person in the trenches with him who isn't losing his cool. Definite improvement over five minutes ago. Now all he needs is something to stab and a clear bead on Dawn's scent.

"I'm Connor." He remembers manners and introductions now that he's not half-feral with agitation.

"Sam."

"Are you— are you guys insane?" Vomit Guy suddenly demands, and Connor looks at him, remembers that he's very annoying. Sam can't see from his position slumped against the desk, but Connor's pretty sure he has glare enough for the both of them. "I mean, who the hell are you people? Guns and... are you serial killers or what?"

The question is clearly the stupidest one thus far, because if either of them were serial killers, Vomit Guy would be thoroughly serial-killed by now, Connor is certain, so he doesn't bother dignifying it with a response. He looks at Sam with a crooked scowl, tells him straight out, "That's your puppy. I don't like his fur."

Something changes before Sam can respond, a shift in the rooftop shuffle that goes quick and away and then around, and Connor's head snaps up to regard the ceiling. He can feel Sam stiffen next to him, and then there's the distinct sleigh-bell sound of breaking glass in quick succession, _crash-crash-crash_, deft footsteps, swift and purposeful, coming closer.

Connor stands, whirls to face the door as something thuds and bounces off, rattling the shelf and jostling the books forward. "Got trouble," he says needlessly, hears Sam moaning and grunting his way to his feet, looming up behind him.

They look so ridiculous, Connor thinks, he and Sam both shirtless and caked in blood, like twin Tarzans straight from a fresh kill in the jungle, all rippling muscle, unkempt hair and raised by apes, except without the loin cloth. Sam's got his gun up, hand a little shaky and his paled skin shimmering with sweat, but his face says this is a familiar irritation that won't hinder his ability to shoot the hell out things, and Connor's got his sickle-knife at his side.

There are more thuds, one-two-three; the bookshelf jolts forward and slams back again, books harassed and teetering to the floor. The sounds stop for several pounding heartbeats, breaths tense and held, hushed whimpers from the peanut gallery. Connor's waiting for it, expecting it, any minute now they're going to crash the gate as one.

The bookshelf wobbles some more, grates against the hardwood as it's slid sideways for no apparent reason, no more thuds, and Connor's not expecting that. You push things from behind, they go forward: these are the laws of physics. But there's no pushing and no forward motion, and these kids are clearly abiding by no laws whatsoever because the bookcase is still groaning its sideways dance.

"Freakin' magic," he decides, and that is just no fun at all. He hates magic for a reason. It's cheating.

"Guess that rules out shapeshifters," Sam mumbles, ticking off some head list he's got.

Connor doesn't know of any shapeshifters that look like kids, but whatever. There's the standard were-things with their furry times of the month, and that's about all the experience he has on that front.

The makeshift barricade scoots jerkily and lurches, abruptly spins on its edge and flies into the adjacent wall with a resounding crash. Two women are pinned behind it while Vomit Guy catches the furthest edge in the face, glasses cracking in half before he slides down, unconscious and trickling blood from his hairline. The women scream bloody murder, injured and scared witless, but there's no time to worry about them just now because the door is free and clear and currently being kicked in.

It splinters and claps down, and Connor has to jump back to avoid it, knocking into Sam's abused arm.

"Ah, goddammit!" Sam bitches, goes a translucent shade of agonized, but he valiantly pushes through it as a matching set of three baby soldiers come strolling in, faces hard and young with weapons taller than they are.

There's an older boy of about eight leading the raid, the same speedy girl from before and another kid not much older than her, all of them with skimmed round heads and gray-mottled fatigues. Connor notices Sam's gun-hand falter a little, a choked gasp, and he risks a glance at him.

Sam looks like he's seen a ghost, staring agog at the boy on the left. The kids don't seem to notice this, or don't care, eyes roving the small space and its occupants; then the barrels of their rifles are lifting, taking aim.

Connor's not waiting around for that bullshit, surges forward and takes the mini unit leader by surprise with his speed. They're faster but they don't expect their prey to put up any kind of decent fight, so it's easy enough for him to snatch the kid in whirl by his collar and pin him against his own chest, shake his rifle loose, blade glinting and hungry at his throat.

The other two watch this with vague interest, the threat to their leader not exactly affecting them the way he'd hoped. Crap. Okay, so plan B.

Connor spins the kid back around and cracks him across the temple with the blunt handle of his knife. The kid's dazed, pissed, kicks out and slams a boot against his shin.

"Shit!" Connor leaps back a step, reassessing. "That actually hurt, you little bastard."

He dodges too late when the kid streaks forward and delivers a series of brutal, rib-creaking strikes to his midsection. Connor grunts, gets him by the arm and knocks his brain around his skull a couple more times, a snapping crunch of cartilage beneath his knuckles before the boy finally goes down.

"Sam!" he yells, trying to snap the dude out of his stasis. "Duck or shoot, man, 'cause they're not backing down!"

Sam jolts back to himself, raises the pistol again, while Connor dodges the barrel tracking him and leaps for it.

"Drop it!" Sam orders, his sights set on the girl in a way that guarantees he can't miss. She just looks back at him, empty and soulless, unfazed, doesn't drop anything as she points the barrel of her weapon at his broad chest, a standoff that won't last very long if she's as uncaring about her own mortality as she seems.

Connor's engaging the boy, who's wise to his tricks now and blurs out of the path of every strike. Connor kicks, the kid jumps, Connor punches, the kid weaves, Connor goes full-speed ahead and the kid dances back and to the side, coming up behind him in a dizzying rush. Connor spins, feints left and slaps right, knocking the gun away. The kid's mossy eyes narrow, and he flings a hand up, sending Connor crashing back into the wall just left of the threshold.

"Cheater," Connor huffs, struggling against the invisible hold that's got his feet dangling a few feet off the ground.

And then Sam says, "Christo," and both of the kids flinch and hiss, eyes pooling black.

Connor slips down a few inches, gets stuck again. "What the heck's that about?" he really wants to know as they shake it off and glare hellfire, and Sam's face is like crumbling granite, furious and pained.

"We can't kill them," he says. "They're possessed."

"You mean these are actual freaking kids?" Connor's appalled. Poor little kids, and he went and knocked that little dude out. Uncool.

Sam doesn't get a chance to answer because the girl chunks her rifle aside and hurls herself through the air with an animalistic roar, pounds into Sam's chest and knocks him back with a scream of agony as he twists too late and lands hard on his shoulder. Connor's wondering why she didn't just shoot him as she scrambles on top of him and starts pounding at his face, Sam's head snapping back and forth and his gun still in hand. It's blatantly suicidal on her part.

The boy is just standing there, keeping Connor pinned to the wall, twitching strangely, some crazy facial tick that's got him all distracted.

He hisses, "Winchester, you're gonna—" and then in a snake's tone, "Stop it, you little shit!" and then he sounds his age, young and horrified and pleading helplessly, face knotted up in horrible anguish, "Stop us. Make it stop."

The girl screams, "Shoot me!" and cracks Sam across the jaw, but Sam won't, absolutely refuses, slides the gun up under the desk and brings his arm wildly back around, slamming his fist into her face. Her head rocks back and she lurches forward again, pounding childish fists against his chest, less devastating and more helpless. "Make it stop! We just want it to stop!"

"I can help you!" he insists, wincing at the abuse and slurring his speech like he's inches away from passing out again, but mulishly determined. "You're fighting it! Let me up and I can help you!"

The boy's still trapped in his schizophrenic inner struggle, a back-and-forth of, "Back off, runt! Get it out! Make it stop! Quit whining you little brat! Just kill us!" and the alternating tears and snarling rage is making Connor's chest feel too small and tight.

He has to get off this fucking wall faster, but the demon's still clawing for dominance, jerking him back up when he slips down, up and down, and Connor's getting a little seasick.

"Leave him alone!" Connor shouts, sudden inspiration that's probably the dumbest dumb he's ever dumbed, but he doesn't care, can't sit here and watch some tiny innocent person struggle so hard against this kind of malevolence. "Don't you want something a little more durable? C'mon, you saw how awesome I am! You know you want it!"

But the demon just sneers at him, jerks its head distractedly, growls, "Got enough problems with this little supershit, fuck you very much!"

Connor's a little thrown by that, stops issuing stupid invitations into his body.

The girl's got her fingers clawed into Sam's chest like she's holding on for dear life now, head bowed low and her back hitching sharp and fast with exertion. Sam stops trying to talk her into letting him up, starts shouting in Latin, brows frowning tight in pain and deep concentration, like he's rusty.

The reaction is immediate. Both children reel and scream, shaking themselves around like wild dogs, and the unconscious boy's body is twitching around on the floor. They're alternating curses and cries of pain, stopping and starting all over the place. Sam's voice gains surety and rhythm.

"I'll rip your throat out!" the girl snarls at him, but she's too busy seizing and trying to choke something down to follow through on that threat. "Lab rats! Animals! They're killers!" A wet cough. "Shoot them!"

"Shoot us!" the boy gags out in agreement, dropping hard onto his knees with his shoulders juddering. "Make it stop!"

Connor's pretty sure shooting them would be bad. Something tells him the demons won't have the courtesy to stay down if that happens, and probably there'll be nothing left to fight them. So he's fairly certain it's a good thing when Sam continues speaking in tongues, ignoring the pleas.

All at once, gravity regains dominion and Connor lands on his feet, the kids throw their heads back and screech out these writhing black clouds pulsing with unadulterated hatred and cold intent. The clouds whirl ominously for a moment, then sink slowly, falteringly, into the floor, and if they had solid form, Connor imagines there'd be claws scrabbling at the hardwood in a last-ditch effort to defy Hell's summons.

He skids across the floor and catches the boy before his face smashes into the wood, pulls him into his arms. He's trembling violently, sheened with sweat, sobbing so softly like he's fighting it, like he doesn't know how to stop fighting. He still smells wrong, but it's altered, more like a den of animals that don't belong together than the overpowering match smell of before. And fear. The fear is overwhelming.

Connor looks to Sam, who's still prone on the ground with a similarly shaken girl tucked up against him, good arm draped over her and holding her close as he stares at Connor's burden with this sort of shocked awe.

Sam really doesn't look good, face waxy and lined with his body's distress, more discoloration swelling up underneath the new layers of blood from where the girl smacked him around with her little sledgehammer fists, and he's sweaty and panting hard.

But he's staring harder, like he can't blink until things make more sense.

Connor notices movement and puts being preoccupied by Sam's weird fixation on hold, sees a couple of squeaky-looking guys slinking along the wall and heading for the door. There are far fewer people in here than there were before, and he guesses some of them already snuck out while he was distracted. They're idiots, refusing to believe the danger right in front of them, like they can flee the room and it'll be all gone instead of hopelessly multiplied.

"You go out there, you're pretty much gonna die," Connor warns. He's not in the mood for this, has a bitty, terrified and recently suicidal person to attend to, and Sam is sure to black out any second, so that's as out of his way as he feels like going for these morons.

The guys stop short, the reluctant line forming behind them suddenly going still, second-guessing. The two in front dash out anyway, and three more follow while the librarian and her assistant decide to stick with the well-armed men. As pissed as he is with the circumstances, he can't help but feel a cold stab of guilt for the runners once they're gone; his responsibility and he let his emotions get the better of him.

The librarian is a young, perky blond thing, and she hesitates a moment, questions crowding her eyes that she thinks better of asking just now, then moves over to check on the unconscious kid, whose smashed nose has spurted blood all over his face. The two trapped girls are still sobbing behind the bookcase, and Connor needs to fix that pretty soon, but he can't bring himself to let go of the kid.

The boy in Connor's arms croaks out, "Shoulda killed us. Now we hafta go back to the bad place," fingers that are so skinny and small digging into Connor's side, and Connor squeezes him tighter, hot coal flaring inside of him at the terrified tremor, the plaintive words.

"You don't have to go back," he grates, and he wants to kill something unknown for this child he's just met, doesn't care that it's crazy or weird because this little being is strumming heartstrings he didn't even know he had like a harp.

"Shoulda killed us," he repeats like Connor's assurance is worth about as much as thin air.

The older boy suddenly shoots upright with a low growl, reflexively shoves the librarian out of his personal space, "Don't touch me!" and she sprawls backwards on her ass, scoots away.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Sam tries, and the boy's paranoid gaze whips over to him, narrows on his proximity to the girl. He doesn't even seem to care that his nose is crooked.

"Let go of her," he warns, but it's not like Sam has the flexibility to extract her at the moment, and it doesn't look like she wants to be extracted, her bald head buried in Sam's armpit.

Connor feels like he should help calm him, but given the kid's protective vibe and the fact that he bashed his face in, he doesn't think he'll be all that receptive to anything he has to say. Luckily, Sam is on a roll.

"I'm not hurting her," he soothes, tone even and slow like he's placating a mental patient or a wounded animal. "She's fine, she's safe, okay? I can't even get up right now." Sam seems like he's used to talking down the overprotective and unreasonable. Connor wonders if that's how people talk to him when someone looks at Dawn sideways; he's never really been in the frame of mind to notice.

The boy scans him critically, lips pursed and and eyes squinched, clearly distrustful of anyone and anything new and unknown. Connor doesn't miss the very subtle tremors or the way he's strung taut in his effort to hide it. It indicates several troubling things to someone with an eye for trouble. The kid's clearly used to being responsible, in charge, too grown up and not at all comfortable with showing weakness.

"Don't make us go back," the girl interjects between hitching sobs. It's not a plea for protection but another one for quick and neat obliteration: kill them and they won't have to go.

The older boy looks panicked, like she's revealing state secrets, hisses a loud stage whisper for her to, "Shut up!" and she does.

Sam holds onto her like he's announcing to the world that they'll have to pry these kids from his cold, dead clutches. "You're gonna be okay now." His tone is rigid and commanding the universe's obedience, eyes reckless like he doesn't even care if he has to face down the National Guard to make it true, and Connor thinks he could really start to like this guy.

They're afraid of something more than just demons, would rather die than be returned to it. Connor doesn't know where these kids came from, but he'll be damned if he's sending them back to something that elicits this kind of terror after their traumatizing possession ordeal.

The smaller boy doesn't believe it, won't believe it, shaking his head vehemently against Connor's shoulder, not seeming to care that his elder is against talking to the strangers. "They'll take us, you can't stop them, they'll take us."

There's something possessive in Sam's gaze as it travels back to Connor's quaking little package, and it's no small feat that the Destroyer finds it unsettling.

Sam says, "No one's taking you anywhere," and he fucking means it.

tbc


	4. And If You Make It Past The Shotgun In T

**A/N:** Thanks so much to _kayariley_ and _trouble _for the beta and sounding board assistance. I'm pretty sure this whole story would have imploded with nonsensical-ness if not for them.

* * *

**And If You Make It Past The Shotgun In The Hall**

**

* * *

**

There are certain drawbacks in life that Angel has learned to cope with. Mostly.

Angel is a vampire, and the sun is not his friend.

Connor is a trouble-seeker, a good kid for the most part, but constantly brimming over with energy that needs to go somewhere, not always somewhere productive. Being the son of vampires, this is not surprising.

Dawn is a trouble-magnet, also a good kid, but constantly brimming over with this mystical trumpet-call of come-kidnap-me. Being Buffy's magically-gifted sister, it's just plain expected.

The last year of Angel's life has been trying, to say the least, since trouble-seeker met trouble-magnet and insults were fired until sparks flew. Sometimes insults are still fired, actually, but it's usually kind of entertaining.

Spike is annoying. This is an eternal truth that will never go away. Like _not ever_ because, ya know, he's immortal and refuses to go anywhere else.

These are Angel's trials, and he deals with them, often with a cool coat and a mysterious air.

But when it all gets smashed up together—Connor and Dawn in a troublesome shootout at high noon, Spike vibrating in the passenger's seat of Angel's Plymouth as they sit parked at the furthest end of Stanford Avenue behind lines and lines of strobes, news vans and other worried families while Illyria makes graphic threats in the backseat and Angel is this knot of volcanic tension behind the wheel—Angel's ability to deal gets a little iffy.

Angel has drawbacks, the universe has rules, and it all needs to melt and morph into something more acceptable. The sun needs to take a swan dive, Connor and Dawn need to not be on the other side of a cluster of ambulances and police cars where he can't see them, there needs to be no school shootings or sewer maintenance (because _of course _those two would get into trouble up to their eyeballs on a bright, shiny day when half the city's workers are clogging up the underground network) and Spike needs to shut up.

The Plymouth is crammed in a sardine can with dozens of other vehicles near the intersection of Stanford Avenue and Bowdoin Street, which ultimately runs into Campus Drive. Campus Drive seems to be the line the cops have drawn, as it circles the bulk of the campus and is well outside the boundaries of shots fired. There's a huge blockade of every emergency vehicle and armed officer the city has available, flashing lights and glinting badges, orange-and-white barriers and bullhorns. The parking lot of the elementary school outside Spike's window is a flurry of activity as parents rush to pick up their kids, completely ignoring the authorities' directive to _stay calm and sit tight_, and Spike is loudly of the mind that Angel should just ram through all of the metal and flesh swarming the streets.

Angel's gritting his teeth so hard they're sure to crack.

"C'mon! This is bloody ridiculous!" Spike is impatient and furious, not one for idle car confinement on a good day. He slams a fist against the dash, blowing a cloud of smoke around the cigarette clenched between his lips. "S'not like we won't survive a few bullets, git! Shift your arse!"

"Spike." Angel actually needs to breathe right now, unlock his jaw and engage in some oxygen intake. "Even if I was willing to plow over a bunch of innocent people, I can't get enough propulsion in this mess to ram through anything. There'll just be crashing and more stopping."

"Wanker!" Spike is pitching a fit now, cursing the sun, Angel's stubborn need to have logic, the necro-tempered glass as if it is the culprit here instead of the only thing between him and combustion, stomping his feet on the floorboards, blowing more smoke.

Angel has to remember that Spike is worried. This is how he communicates it. Killing him would be bad... for some reason.

Illyria leans forward between the seats, glaring through the windshield with her hands gripping the headrests. She's incognito, wearing jeans and a plain black hoodie, the hood flopped over her forehead to hide her hair and blue veins, but her eyes are still visible and disconcertingly icy. She's refused to be Fred since Wesley died, so this is how she blends.

"I reiterate my desire to annihilate the metallic beasts and proceed into the war zone," she says flatly, and it's more of a generous warning of imminent action than a request, so Angel's going to have to talk her down again. It's never wise to set her loose on civilians without supervision no matter how well she's adapted.

She's grown oddly attached to Connor and Dawn, which he guesses has something to do with the fact that they actually indulge her endless questions, and the disturbing fact that she finds Dawn "shiny and mesmerizing." Plus, unhappy Spike equals unhappy god-king. Another of those life tests on Angel's sanity.

"Remember when I told about patience being a perfectly legitimate tactic?" Angel says wearily, trying to remember the exact discussion himself as he sits here impotently and tests the steering wheel's endurance by twisting it underneath his hands, the radio a low background murmur of unhelpful information. Connor's in there, guns are in there, Angel's _not in there_. "You have to just. Just sit still and wait. Sun goes down, we'll sneak in."

Yes, that's a sensible plan: waiting. Except the part about waiting.

It's already been decades since Spike's soaps were interrupted with the breaking news, and the immediate response of calling Connor and Dawn elicited nothing relieving because they didn't answer, still aren't answering. And if he has to listen to one more blasting staccato that his sensitive hearing won't spare him from, he's likely to get himself charbroiled, anyway.

"The Slayer's gonna have our arses for handbags by the time this is over," Spike grumbles, still fidgeting around like a hyperactive toddler being forced into a wholly uncalled for time-out. He stabs the butt of his cigarette into the overflowing ashtray, lights another one, twin trails of smoke pouring through his nostrils, and Angel's kind of frozen for a minute because _crap_, he forgot about Buffy.

_Watch out for my sister_, Buffy had said when she found out Dawn got accepted to Stanford. _Don't let her manipulate you with the big doe eyes, don't let her cook, and _do not_ let her get kidnapped, killed, or otherwise victimized._ The threat had remained unspoken because Angel knew her well enough to have a mental list of the visuals.

She's in England right now or something, and he's not sure if the news has gone from national to worldwide yet.

"Did you call her?"

Spike eyeballs him like he's just been asked if he put on sunscreen today. "Do I look suicidal to you?"

"Right now?" Angel grates, twists the vinyl with a creak. "You've practically been begging me to kill you all day so I'm gonna hafta go with yes."

Spike flops petulantly back into his seat, plays Puff The Bitchy Dragon with his cigarette. "You call her."

Angel frowns. "I don't want to, so _clearly_ you have to do it."

"M'not callin' her."

"Me, either."

"Fine."

"Great." Angel sighs and returns his stare to the circus outside, huffs, twists. "Someone has to call her."

"Know anyone invulnerable enough to be the messenger she'll wanna pound on when she gets here?" Spike grumbles, stiffens before he's even finished his sentence and looks at Angel.

Angel looks back, then as one, they both crane their heads to regard Illyria, who merely looks impatient as she's yet to be given an acceptable reason not to crush and tear.

Comprehension dawns, and she snaps out a palm, waiting for a phone to be slapped into it. "You are both cowardly and annoying. I do not understand why I tolerate you."

-:-

Command central is hopping with activity, walls of monitors and the crackle of radio reports, non-combatants spread out in rolling chairs so they can swivel and scoot between stations as needed. Buffy watches the unfolding mini-disasters surge across communication feeds all around her with a mild hysteria bubbling up inside.

Portals are popping up all over Europe, another clan of Jhe orchestrating the chaos to usher in reinforcements from their own world and take over this one. The Slayers are scattered across the continent, almost her entire force occupied with the threat, and she's standing here in the windowless and dank surveillance room of the newly-restored Council building, surrounded by ugly green tile and too-stark fluorescents, occasionally offering up tactical advice that may or may not be ignored.

This general of war thing is all perfectly practical, but she itches to do more, to jump right into the middle of something with fists and feet.

"I should be out there," Buffy mutters as she edges up behind Xander and eyes the bank of screens that reveal a particularly troublesome portal in their own backyard.

Xander's too busy barking into his comm link to respond, hands flitting over controls and switching between feeds.

The Slayers in the field are yodeling war cries and tearing into flesh like paper, but it's not enough. The demons are too many and the Slayers are more concerned with squashing them than getting to the cause of the disturbance. It doesn't require magical intervention, just someone focused enough to take advantage of the distraction and eliminate the casters the demons are trying to protect. Her agents are still so undisciplined, but it's not like she can hold it against them given her own track record for falling in line with authority.

"Yo, B!" The entrance bangs open. Faith stalks in hurriedly, weapons bulging all over her tight, black clothing. Her hair's a frazzled mess and she's oozing sweat, a sparkle of thrill in her eyes that Buffy tries not to be jealous of.

Buffy turns to regard her hopefully. "You need me for something?" It might sound a bit too overeager but she doesn't particularly care at the moment.

Faith shakes her head and Buffy's frustration wells up again. "I was just about to head out and switch out the troops, get some actual shit done about that magic hole." She jerks her chin at the bustle in front of and on the screens as she fumbles in a pocket and pulls out Buffy's cell. "You left this in the library. Call came in and now you gotta go."

Buffy takes the phone being jabbed at her with furrowed brows. "Go?"

"Illyria called," Faith says, raised brows emphasizing the oddity of that occurrence. "Didn't think that chick knew how to push a button without breaking it."

Buffy would find this humorous if it wasn't for the fact that Illyria using modern technology likely equals major badness. "Angel?"

Faith shakes her head, all humor gone. "It's Dawn."

Buffy's inner hysteria surges up to full capacity and she's darting for the door before anyone can blink. She pauses and looks back, the action almost ripping her in half as she remembers the world being in peril.

"We got this, B," Faith assures, waving her off. "I can boss people around, no sweat. Get the fuck outta here."

Buffy shoots her a grateful look and slams out into the hall, mind racing ahead of her as she works out who she can afford to take with her.

"Willow!" she yells as she launches into a full-on sprint for the stairs, juggling her phone to her ear to call Angel and find out just how excessively she needs to be armed.

-:-

There's an internal war going on, fears clashing against each other, too many people murmuring busily, jostling his elbows and grating against his delicate nerves, all of them packed tightly into the boundaries of roped-off pathways.

Sam's in trouble, the Impala has been relegated to the horrible fate of a long-term parking garage, and Dean is naked.

He reaches back forlornly to pat at his bereft waistband, no soothing bulge of safety, no press of skin-warmed metal against his back, lets out a shaky breath.

"It's fine, Dean," John says again as he notes his son's nervous tick and stuffs their too-light duffels onto the conveyor belt.

One particularly impatient jackass keeps jamming his laptop bag up against the small of Dean's back. He grinds his teeth, swears he's going to crunch the guy's ribcage into a fun concave shape if he doesn't cut it out. His dad keeps saying it's all fine, but Dean doesn't know who he's trying to convince. It has yet to miraculously come true.

They both shed their shoes and jackets and lay them beside their bags, watching the belt spirit them off into the little rubber-fringed cavemouth for a moment before John takes Dean roughly by his wrist and hauls him forward.

The guy behind him huffs out a, "Finally," and Dean has to fight hard not to turn around and knock him on his ass. That'd just bring security and time-consuming strip searches down on them, and Dad would be even more pissed than he already is.

They get through the strangely intimidating doorframe thing that stands in the middle of nothing without too much fuss—if you don't count the way Dean gets so caught up staring at the construct like some beast waiting to swallow him that John has to turn around and yank him through by his shirt collar to snap him out of it—collect their things and replace their outerwear. John grabs his son's wrist again to make sure he maintains some kind of forward motion, as Dean's legs aren't really feeling all that cooperative.

Dad seems irritably resigned to Dean being a dumbstruck zombie, and he might feel a little ashamed of himself if it weren't for the paralyzing fear. At least he's not hyperventilating or puking, so that's something.

He'll be more useful once the defying gravity part of this nightmare is over, he swears it.

John guides them through the bumbling crowds and dodges those go-cart things with fierce efficiency. People take one look at the deadly glint of his dark eyes and make a hole without much thought, and before Dean knows it, they're in another line. This one is shorter and dwindling too rapidly as the perky brunette behind the little podium swiftly scans tickets, a company smile and some chirping spiel no one ever listens to, because who can't figure out number sequences and seat assignments?

Dean's heartbeat has gotten a little more obnoxious, cold sweat breaking out over his skin. But his dad still has his wrist in a deathgrip and there's no escape, the howling abyss of the plane ramp waiting patiently for him to be dragged inside.

Bush Intercontinental was the nearest airport, and Dad had been the one driving so it wasn't like Dean could do anything about the road to hell he'd opted for after Sam's stubborn persistence in not answering his phone. Even with their blatant disregard for traffic laws, there's no way they could get to California in any kind of timely manner by car.

Dean agrees with getting there fast but this? This is not natural. Huge tubes of metal are not _supposed_ to leave the ground without some disastrous impact when gravity ultimately wins. They'll be no good to Sam if they're in a flaming heap of twisted shrapnel in some random cornfield.

Dean blows out another shaky breath and leaves his sharper awareness behind for a little while. He doesn't want to pay too much attention to being escorted none-too-gently onto the craft of fiery doom, or being forcefully folded into his window seat—though he does come back to himself long enough to snap that fucker shut—immediately melds his body into the itchy upholstery, clutches the armrests and closes his eyes for the duration.

John shifts around next to him once he's stowed the carry-ons, says, "Caleb's in the area. He'll meet us there. It'll be fine."

Dean already knows this, but Dad seems to be on some reassurance loop that insists he repeat things over and over. It is comforting to have his dad on this death trap with him, though, because there's no way John Winchester will tolerate going out in something so mundane as a plane crash, so Dean tries to relax a little, tries to concentrate on what lies on the other side of this four-hour flight.

Caleb will be waiting for them when they land on that wonderfully awesome thing known as the ground. Caleb will have extra weapons seeing as how airport security is unreasonably strict about that kind of thing. Caleb will take them to Sammy.

Dean can't _wait _to see Caleb.

-:-

His meatsuit's clearance has gotten him as far as the hectic perimeter of Campus Drive, and he's not all that concerned with the man's career or any consequences that will be brought on by his superiors. He's more worried about getting his demons out before certain other demons catch on to his presence.

The whole mission had been going so well until the college, the other psychic freaks taken out in whimpers and isolation. Sam Winchester was the only remaining problem child, and also the most formidable given his knowledge and constantly busy surroundings. It was why he used more than one of the kids to get the job done. That, and the rumors of Champions infesting the area. Lydecker, as he was referring to himself for the moment, couldn't risk losing the last target to some interfering do-gooder.

He's kicking himself for not listening to the demons' complaints of their meatsuits' strengthening rebellions sooner. Sending all of them in might have been slight overkill.

"It's no good, sir," Whitaker says as he shuffles up behind him and settles on his right, scanning the section of parking lot on the other side of the barriers and barking men in uniform.

"What do you mean it's no good?" Lydecker hisses, a quick sidelong glance that reveals tattered and bloodied clothing underneath a flak jacket his underling appears to have acquired from somewhere. The extra layer looks extremely out of place in this heat, but the officers are wrapped up in similar gear so it's nothing to quibble over. "You got in," he states more than asks.

Whitaker nods, eyes a crisp gray of irritation as he zips himself up tighter to cover the gore. "Got shot for my troubles, sir. They're not taking our orders anymore."

Lydecker grinds his teeth. He doesn't like admitting defeat. At all. "They won't leave the children?"

"I'm not sure they're entirely in control of that, sir."

"Fuck." Lydecker's seen some of the weak struggles, figures the kids' desperate defiances are probably mixing with the demons' ingrained desires to inflict general violence and resulting in an overall whacked-out vessel. The gunshots are getting less and less frequent, but there are still the occasional hiccuping reports that indicate a wolf locating a henhouse. He wonders what they'll do when they run out of things to kill in there. "Where's Greer?"

Whitaker shrugs, hands clasped behind his stiff back as he continues to keep his eyes forward for any sign of trouble, oddly adopting his meatsuit's mannerisms and keeping up the chain of command even though no one's paying them much attention. "Haven't seen him since we infiltrated, sir." He fingers the radio on his belt. "He's not responding."

"Bodies?" Lydecker knows they didn't just slip through without making some kind of mess. The line's sealed up tighter than a nun's panties.

"Disposed of, sir."

They're jostled by a pair of paramedics rushing by to obtain more supplies from the ambulance they're standing in front of, and Lydecker scowls but moves further toward the police cruiser with its strobes flashing weakly across a bright, cloudless afternoon. The medics are trying to make themselves appear useful, he guesses, because there are no more injured to be recovered safely until the threat's neutralized.

Not that it will be. At least not with guns and bullhorns.

He sighs as he realizes he's going to have to kill the children if he has any hope of pulling his bastard demons free. Stumbling upon that operation had been such a lucky break, or so he'd thought at the time. Not only could the lovely little abominations withstand demonic possession for long periods of time, but they had the added benefit of speed and enhanced senses. Bred assassins, which was just what he'd needed. It isn't exactly easy getting out of Hell these days, and especially with a very small army of demons. The kids had been perfect for going up against demonically-endowed humans, so small and easily trusted for it, and they'd been so efficient about the whole thing.

Now they're just a pain in his ass.

"Assume Greer's a lost cause," he orders, turning to regard the Chief of Police commanding his swarm of subordinates with disdain. "I'll handle Winchester. You deal with the kids."

"Yes, sir," Whitaker says with anticipatory glee, and Lydecker rolls his eyes indulgently.

The young ones are always so eager for bloodshed, which is all well and good, but someone's got to have a more panoramic viewpoint if Hell's spawn want to keep their human playthings for all that torment they love so much. Certain other demons will never quite get that, no matter how old they live to be.

"Quick and clean, kid," Lydecker reiterates as his overeager progeny begins to move out. "And if you see him..."

Whitaker throws an exasperated look over his shoulder, clearly not needing to be lectured on self-preservation. "I'm not quite stupid enough to tangle with the likes of Azazel, sir."

Lydecker cocks a sour smirk and nods. Whitaker slinks off into the crowd. Turning back toward the current man in charge, at least until the Feds get here, Lydecker plasters on his most genial yet commanding expression and starts forward to give the disaster crews a few vaguely helpful hints on exterminating transgenics.

Then he'll handle Sam Winchester and this entire stupid long-term plan of ultimate chaos will be null and void.

He really does hate chaos.

-:-

Spike's head nearly hits the ceiling of the car when a small but powerful fist bangs against the glass.

"Bloody hell, Slayer! Give a vamp a heart attack, why don't you?" He carefully cracks the window to avoid fatal rays, the smoke that's collected in the vehicle billowing out into her face.

Buffy's harried and dark expression conveys she's clearly not in the mood as she waves a hand around and coughs pointedly, the sunlight behind her casting her cinched-back locks in a golden halo that blatantly contradicts the restless hellion within. "Your heart doesn't beat," she says flatly as she shoves bundles of something bulky and black through the meager opening. "Put these on and get your asses out here."

Spike eyes the protective gear she's wearing, also bulky and black, figures that's what he's being offered.

"We brought helmets, too," a similarly clad Willow puts in as she shuffles up behind Buffy and gives a sheepish little wave, her other hand toting said helmets that obviously aren't going to fit through the window. "They're sunproof."

The witch's presence clues him in to how Buffy got here so fast, and he tosses one of the suits to Angel, who hasn't given up on the glower at all; not that he ever has, really. Willow opens the back door as they duck down into their seats, chucks the helmets in and slams it shut again. Illyria nearly bashes them in the head as she passes them up front with an impatience to rival Buffy's.

"You got a plan for getting inside?" Angel asks as he begins to change, Buffy turning her back to give them some privacy, and Spike scoffs.

"S'not like you haven't seen it all before."

Her shoulders stiffen against the glass. "We've got our Council clearance," she says. "Hurry up."

They make quick work of donning the gear and swiftly scramble out of the car. The helmet is stuffy and weighing Spike's head down, but he's absurdly grateful for the Slayer's forethought, even if she is being a bitch at the moment. Nothing new, though. That's just Buffy when she's in slay-mode, and he's not exactly feeling sociable himself as he practically hums with the need to smack something around.

"The obnoxious box squawks of juveniles," Illyria informs them dispassionately when Willow hands her a pair of sunglasses to cover her eyes. "This gathering is unnecessary. Their fragile bodies are easily broken." The '_by me'_ remains unspoken, but it's clear that Illyria is mildly offended by all this backup, as if they're implying she needs any.

Buffy lifts a brow at Spike for clarification, and he nudges them forward to begin weaving their way through the crowds. "Radio's leakin' rumors about babes being the culprits," he explains to Buffy, grabs Illyria's bicep to keep her from wandering off as she tries to plow ahead of them. "Nobody's sayin' you can't get it done all by your lonesome, Blue, but you can't run in there and bloody anything that moves. Try to listen to us for once, will you?"

Illyria affords him a nasty sneer but does as she's told for the time being.

"Kids?" Willow squeaks, all wide, dewy eyes of gooey sympathy, looking to Buffy as the Slayer takes the lead and pushes people aside unapologetically.

Buffy's frown is hard and disturbed but she maintains her momentum. "It doesn't matter. We figured humans so we brought tranqs." She hefts the canvas bag slung across her shoulders and tugs out a couple of handguns to distribute. "We'll figure out the rest as we go."


	5. Dial The Combination

**A/N: **Thanks to trouble for the quick beta! And thank you all so much for the reviews and favorites, so far! I'm sorry I'm slooooow. I can't seem to speed things along for the life of me, but gradual progress is better than no progress, right? :D

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**Dial The Combination**

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Dawn can't stop looking at her, at those eyes.

She's seen eyes like that before but her mind is rejecting the intel every time the memory flashes through. This girl is too young, can't possibly be practicing the dark arts, much less addicted to them. There are impotent little twitches of telekinesis that jolt a table leg a few inches or cause a mild breeze to flutter through the coffee shop's back room, Dawn's simple but effective binding spell tempering whatever limited power the child does possess. She would have escaped it by now if she were any kind of witch.

She's not a witch.

There's no addiction intervention needed here, but there is something badly wrong with this. There's something inside of her. It's not black magic but it is dark, and Dawn has no idea how to extract it, or what it even is because she's never run across it before. She has to figure it out soon, though, because the child is begging her. Pleading in her fleeting moments of control, which are coming fewer and further between.

She keeps saying, "Get it out," and, "Please just kill me," and Dawn badly wants to get whatever it is out, absolutely refuses to kill her.

It's only been an hour since the girl came barging in, but Jess is visibly wearing. Ropes can't hold the girl, they both know it, so it has to be Jess. But it's not physical exhaustion. A Slayer can fight for days if she has to, and Dawn has intimate knowledge of time's relativity in a fight, where a single minute seems like hours and adrenaline draws on the body's entire well of strength to survive, saps a normal person pretty damn quickly. It helps her understand just how impressive a Slayer's fortitude really is.

But Jess is still a person and people feel. Jess's emotions are weighing her down as she's forced to remain in close contact with the alternately pleading and thrashing child, her shoulders sagging with the odd form of empathy she seems to have, and the whole hostage situation isn't helping, either.

And Dawn still doesn't know what to _do_, doesn't even know where to start. It's pissing her off.

"Sorry to, uh, interrupt," Professor Hightower says.

Dawn jumps at the sound of his voice. She's been staring so hard at the girl it's giving her a headache, hadn't even heard him come out of the office, and frowns at herself. That kind of slacking is bound to get someone killed. She needs to get her head back on straight. "It's fine," Dawn sighs, running a hand over her eyes as she looks over at him. "Was there something you needed?"

He's taken his suit jacket off, collared shirt dark with sweat and his face flushed. He skids a nervous look at Jess and her prisoner, then at the huge gun in Dawn's hand. "Getting a little cramped in there." He sounds unsure of himself and annoyed about it, clearly struggling with the idea of taking orders from a student, normal hierarchy all in freefall. He reminds Dawn of the stuffier Watchers—not remotely approaching the awesomeness that is Giles, and without the cool accent.

Dawn doesn't know exactly what the hell is going on yet, but she knows more than the rest, and that makes her best suited for leader. It sucks, because it's not like she doesn't want to scream and flail and let _anyone else at all _make the decisions, but she's what they're stuck with. She's still gotta earn her place among the unenlightened, though, if she wants to prevent a mutiny.

"Sorry," she says, tucking the gun closer to her side, because manners and morale are important, Buffy's always saying that (while rarely exercising her own advice, but that part's not helpful right now). "We've got a... thing going on here, but you guys don't have to stay locked up anymore, I guess. Just," she bites her lip, "if any of them seem extra twitchy, it's probably a good idea to talk them into staying put until we get this figured out. It's a little weird," she adds unnecessarily, because what about this whole thing _isn't_ weird.

But the professor nods like she's revealing sacred bits of wisdom, straightens at being charged with a task and scampers off.

"It's quiet," Jess says when Dawn turns back to her. The child's having one of her strange Zen moments, perfectly limp in Jess' lap and staring at nothing, and Dawn can see some of the strain lift from Jess' face. "Try again."

Dawn nods. It's been a good thirty minutes since the last shot or scream, at least, and she's taken over phone duty. She doesn't want to think about what the lull in gunfire means, tries her cell, then Jess's, and gets the same old, worthless static. She grits her teeth and tamps down the urge to hurl the freaking things at a wall, has to close her eyes and count to ten and not think too hard about Connor.

A few people trickle out of the office; mostly guys, Dawn notices, feeling this irrational annoyance that the women of their group—aside from her and Jess, obviously—are playing up that whole damsel thing. This is no time for out-of-the-blue rants about feminism, though, so she bites that back, too. She's letting the stress get to her, and that's no good. It's probably her imagination, but she swears she can smell slowly roasting death invading their temporary haven.

"What's up with her?" Greg asks, watching Jess's renewed strain as the girl starts pitching another cussing, spitting fit.

The others skirt them warily and wander over to the collection of food Dawn and a few others gathered from the front of the shop earlier, for no real reason other than giving everyone something to focus on besides their own fear. They all seem to be willfully ignoring the blatantly bizarre: someone even made a comment about Jess' endless adrenaline rush before. It's nothing new, the things people can explain away when they really want to, and anything else is just some interesting hallucination to be turned over to their psychiatrists later. It can be unbelievably frustrating sometimes but, in this case, Dawn is glad for it. They've got enough mayhem on their plates without her having to give the '_bump in the night'_ lecture.

"Gonna have to get back to you on that," Dawn says, weary. "Anything?"

Greg shakes his head, eyes Dawn's new gun same as the professor had, only Greg looks more assured by it than nervous. "They're just repeating the same stuff over and over, tellin' any hostages who might be watching to sit tight if we're not in immediate danger, but they aren't giving much in the way of progress reports. Guess the cops don't wanna give the media too much info in case the shooters are watching."

"Makes sense." It does make sense, if you're a regular cop who expects regular criminals, but it's no less disappointing. "How's the arm?"

He gives a one-shouldered shrug. "Hurts like a motherfucker, but I'll live."

"Good to know." Dawn likes Greg, she really does. He's calm and reasonable and doesn't ask a bunch of stupid questions. Being one of the few who doesn't constantly grate on her nerves, she can't have him keeling over on her.

Caden—the only other girl brave enough to leave the office—walks over with a mouthful of brownie, chocolate smudged across her lips. She's got pink hair and an inappropriate sense of humor, made apparent in the initial introductions when she cracked a joke about psycho breeders keeping their munchkins caged. Dawn still doesn't know quite what to make of her, just a sense that this girl is who she is and isn't about to apologize for any of it.

She offers Dawn and Greg a bottle of water each, fresh from the walk-in refrigerator. The three of them regard the ranting child thoughtfully for a minute, and Caden snorts when a thick jet of saliva and mucus comes flying out of the kid's foul mouth. Totally inappropriate, but Dawn went over that already.

Greg's a little more sane in his reaction, visibly wigged but not flipping out like the rest of the group: a variation of gaping mouths and bugged eyes and worried chatter as they all back themselves against the furthest wall. "Dude, somebody call a priest," Greg says.

"Right? If she starts puking pea soup, I'm outta here," Caden says, licking her fingers clean and not as outwardly bothered by all of it as her words imply.

Dawn smirks—she can appreciate inappropriate humor as a coping mechanism better than most, given her family and friends— then ends up choking on her water when her brain makes the connection like a knife jammed into a socket. "Holy shit!"

"Huh?" Greg and Caden both ask at the same time, and Dawn's not really sure which of them to credit so she doesn't answer. Doesn't matter, anyway. She's off in her own head, scrap of a plan gaining mass and velocity.

Dawn didn't bring her books to class but Jess did, so she runs over to snatch Jess' backpack up from the corner and digs around, too eager to bother with things like asking permission.

"Hey!" Jess grunts, offended but not able to do much about it at the moment.

Dawn doesn't falter. "The handouts," is all the explanation she gives.

Jess catches on, anyway. "Blue folder," she says, even though she's clearly thinking Dawn has lost her mind.

Their Latin professor had them watch _The Exorcist_ on their last day and assigned a bunch of handouts for summer reading, including a copy of the exorcism used in the script. He seemed to think that was pretty funny, and Dawn makes a mental note to send him muffin baskets and singing telegrams later if this actually works. She wants to kick herself for not thinking of possession sooner, but it's not like it's a common hurdle for the Scoobies or the new-and-improved Angel Investigations. They deal more in things they can stomp and crunch and rarely have to worry about innocent hosts getting in the way. This is progress from all the lack of ideas Dawn had before, at any rate, so she chooses to hang onto that.

"Ha!" Dawn says, victorious, and yanks the packet out. She flips through it and scans the relevant text, sends an apologetic look to the civilians. "You guys should probably go back to the office while I do this. Could get messy." She's not sure of that, really, but if it's anything like the movie...

"Uh-uh, no way," Caden says, shaking her head. "I'm sticking around for this."

There are some mutterings of agreement, everyone but Evan—a nervous-looking guy who quickly shuffles back into hiding—standing their ground. The child is crying again now, being ogled by these jackasses like some interesting sideshow, and Dawn's mildly lifted spirits crash down hard. She feels her face stiffen, argues with the dissenters for a few minutes. Some call her a whackjob, some call her a bitch, and they all want to watch absolutely nothing happen because it's impossible.

Dawn's seriously considering putting the giant rifle in her hand to good use before Jess breaks it all up, saying, "God, shut up! I'm letting her go in ten seconds." She nods down at the girl. "She's pretty pissed, so I'm guessing anyone still around gets a starring role in the bloodbath."

That lights a fire under their asses—impossible or not, they don't want to be left at the mercy of an unrestrained killer baby—and Dawn gives Jess a grateful look once they're all safely shut away.

Jess looks like the ever-pressing weight on her shoulders just got a little heavier, like she was gut-sucking it for the sake of the civilians. "Now would be good," she says, not angry, just tired.

Dawn nods and gets to it.

-:-

It's messy, long, trying, and downright fucking crazy.

Jess feels like she's coming loose in places, everything aching and none of the gears in her head catching right. It's surreal, not really happening, because an old horror movie script can't actually have any merit out here in the real world. Little girls don't get possessed by demons and shoot up schools and get themselves held captive by superwomen. Little girls' faces don't twist up into ugly, hateful-looking little masks, and little girls don't possess a vocabulary to rival the most filthy-mouthed degenerate anyone's ever met.

This is an awful, mind-bending nightmare, is all it is. Jess will wake up eventually, and Sam will be there looking concerned and cuddled close and not in any kind of unknown danger, and it'll all be okay again.

But it's not happening soon—she's already pinched herself raw a dozen times—so she'll just have to go along with the insanity until it washes back with that receding tide of jigsaw dreams and deep, deep sleep. Maybe she was drugged.

The girl thrashes and thrashes, sour-smelling and soaked in sweat, curses and threats tripping over a persistent clog in her windpipe. Jess's muscles ache but she holds on, and Dawn goes on reading, the Latin coming easily enough but her eyes skittish, like she wants to go faster, wants to stop, wants to run screaming from the room and right off a cliff.

Jess doesn't blame her. It's not right, the sheer level of violence and anguish packed into this little bitty form.

"Mommy's burning in Hell!" the girl manages to choke out, and Dawn goes still, mouth frozen mid-syllable and the color dropping from her face. Gasping hard, the girl stops trying to break free, tension running out of her at the Latin's absence. Her smile is shaky but so, so cold. "Send me back down there and I'm go-gonna p-pay her a visit," she pants, wriggles weakly and then gives it up again.

"Dawn," Jess tries, but the girl lets out a mad little cackle that rolls right over any attempts at encouragement, like she's dubbed Jess nothing more than a warm-blooded straitjacket and she's adjusting her behavior accordingly, nodding to herself and just laughing and laughing while Dawn stands there in mute shock.

"Yeah," she chuckles. "Yeah, g-gonna have a nice, long chat. So much to talk about." The girl laughs some more, kicking her feet like she's daring Dawn to come within striking range. "She hates you, ya know. You try and you try to fit in, forget that half the things that make you are forgeries. You think if you believe hard enough, someday you'll be a real girl, Dawnie. But you won't. You aren't. You're always gonna be a freak and you're always gonna be a traitor."

Jess has really had enough of that hateful voice coming out of that tiny mouth, and the fact that the demon, or whatever it is, can apparently read minds is not improving anyone's mood. She doesn't need the background to know the kid's stomping all over forbidden, eggshell territory, because Dawn looks a little confused but a lot like she's gonna puke, and Jess can't have the only person with a clue suffer a breakdown in the middle of the battlefield.

"Dawn, read the damn paper!" Jess snaps, adjusting her hold so that she can wrap a single arm around the girl, slaps her free hand over the girl's crazy, laughing mouth and tries not to retaliate when the she starts chomping at the air pocket behind Jess' palm, head rocking wildly and her teeth working to catch a stray finger.

Dawn jerks like her puppet strings just got picked up again, shakes the gut-punched fog out of her head. "She's not," she says, mostly to herself. "Mom was a good person, she wouldn't go—" Dawn's eyes are bright but noticeably harder as she shakes herself again and glares determinedly at the packet in her hand, an edge to her tone as she starts over.

"Oh, you're heading the worst kinda time-out, you nasty little punk," Jess grunts when a pointy elbow slams into her gut, and she has to give up trying to gag the girl or risk losing her grip.

The girl lets out another of those loony-bin cackles. "Bad kitty," she snarls, breathless, eyes spinning around in her sockets and her whole body twitching like she's being electrocuted. Jess can feel that crackling fissure that comes before a personality shift, and then the girl's face crumples, "Stop it! Please, you're hurting me, stop! Just kill—" She convulses some more. "Back in the kennel, kitty. Shhh!"

Jess has to work hard to catch her breath again; the child inside the monster takes it out of her every time.

"She doesn't love you! She never did!" the kid starts up again, flopping around like a great white snared in a net. "You violated her mind, her life! I'm gonna lay your gut wide open so you and Mommy can be together again! She's gonna smile so big when she cuts into you!"

"Shut up!" Jess shakes the girl as Dawn stumbles over her words, hands trembling and tears spilling freely now, but she doesn't stop this time and that's the only thing Jess can care about at the moment. Amateur therapy hour can come after.

The girl doesn't shut up, but words rapidly give way to screams, verbal blade dulled but no less painful. Dawn finds a better rhythm, a little quicker than before but not sloppy or rushed, doesn't risk eye contact again. The girl flails around so violently, Jess feels something snap under her grip. She winces, her own eyes going hot and her gut rolling around in time with her prisoner, and she just wants this to be _over_ already, Jesus.

But the universe has its own schedule to keep, apparently, because the ritual is like a hundred freakin' pages long.

When Dawn stops talking, the kid's still flopping and writhing and foaming at the mouth, drool burbling up from her lips and her chest hitching with desperate little hurks for air. She hacks up something slimy and black and really, really gross—like an alien oil-spill flung all down her chin and chest—coughs and coughs and coughs until Jess is sure every last one of her insides are gonna come up the same way.

Then her eyes roll back into her head and she slumps back against Jess' chest, loose-limbed and utterly still.

Jess checks her pulse, sighing in relief at the steady flutter beneath her fingertips.

There's a tense beat of silence, Dawn and Jess watching carefully for a trick or a trap.

"Did it work?" Jess asks.

Dawn swipes a hand across her eyes, smearing wetness all over her face rather than banishing it. She looks around like the walls will give her a flashing neon sign one way or another, looks back at Jess and shrugs.

Jess's shoulders sag. She relaxes her arms to ease the ache some; doesn't let her guard down just yet, though. Despite the obvious effect the ritual had, she's still dubious of any success born from applying pop culture to real life. That ever-popular '_don't try this at home'_ disclaimer ruined what could have been a mightily adventurous childhood, and it's back to haunt her now, disapproving as ever and laying any hopeful optimism to waste.

"I'm gonna see if I can find something to tie her up with," Dawn decides after a thoughtful minute, clearly hesitant but low on options.

Jess can't play human shackle forever, and her numb ass and thoroughly abused joints are grateful for the reprieve, even if she does feel another stab of guilt at the idea of the girl waking demon-free to find herself tied up.

_But what's a little bondage trauma on top of evil bodysnatching?_ Jess thinks bitterly, running a gentle hand across the kid's brow.

Her slack face is deceptively peaceful, suggesting an innocence that shouldn't be the terrible lie it is, small hands with so much blood on them before the poor thing's even lost her first baby tooth. Jess doesn't even want to think about the kind of damage that will rear its ugly head when this short reprieve of unconsciousness passes. She desperately hopes all the gunslinging midgets will be under control by then so she can slink back into her life like a coward and let the professionals deal with it.

It's a stupid thing to hang her hopes on, though, she knows. She may be new to this but she's still superpowered, and Dawn has all the freaky know-how—two people just barely prepared to draw and accept impossible conclusions, and it was nothing more than a random shot in the dark that got them this far. No way any normal-person officials are going to have a handle on this situation anytime in the foreseeable future.

Which means someone crazy enough to think outside the box is going to have to step up.

God, Jess hates the whole world right now.

"Looks like this is what we're working with," Dawn says when she comes back from the storage closets by the back door, bungee cables swinging from her grip. She bites her lip, looking around, then pulls up a chair. Taking a fortifying breath, she kneels down and starts to lift the girl from Jess's lap. "I guess I'll keep watch with the rifle. I don't trust anyone else with it, unless—"

Jess shakes her head. "Don't look at me. I didn't grow up in the south," she says. A wry smirk at the way Dawn holds the rifle like it's crucial to her sanity and she can't stand that very sight of it at the same time, and Jess adds, "Or, ya know, a war zone."

Dawn chuffs, and Jess stands to help her wrangle the kid into the chair, knees groaning like she's eighty instead of twenty-one.

"So I've been trying really hard not to think ahead without realizing I was trying really hard not to think ahead," Jess says conversationally, because she may have been slow to the table but she thinks Dawn's known all along. She loops a bungee around, looking for the best way to secure it without cutting off the girl's circulation, Dawn holding her up so she won't flop around too much. "And wow, did I figure out why. We gotta go out there and do something heroic, don't we?"

Dawn's smirk is brittle-looking. "I'm still working on that plan," she admits. "We can't take the civilians on a slaying field trip and I'm not sure we should just leave them here."

Jess nods. She's already so very sick of this hot, cramped room and the relentless pulse of volatile emotion from all corners, but she feels a guilty kind of relief at the delay. Someone forgot to drop the fearless bad-ass in her personality when they signed her up for this gig, she supposes. "Well, I'm untrained but I know how to throw a punch, so I'm good for that, I guess. I just." She sighs, resolutely staring at her hands as she works. "I feel like I should make you sign a disclaimer that I'm not responsible if you get folded, spindled, and-or mutilated."

"Sorry. Forgot to bring my newbie contracts with me," Dawn says, smiling in reassurance. "It's cool, anyway. I can handle myself."

"You've lived this long," Jess agrees. "Not really sure how you do it, though. I've got the mutant perks and I'm scared as hell."

"I've trained long and hard in the arts of sneaking around and running away really fast. It's all about the timing."

Jess snorts, and they work in silence for a few more minutes before she notices the tension crowding back into Dawn's shoulders. "You wanna talk about it?" Jess asks, careful not to sound invested one way or another. The demon really got to Dawn with all that stuff about her mom (and hell if Jess has any idea what the vague taunts meant, aside from the obvious fact that the lady's dead), but she doesn't know Dawn well enough to know if she's a heart-to-heart type.

Dawn shakes her head. "Hazard of the job," is all she says, which doesn't really sound encouraging. It's getting easier and easier to see why the Slayer line can't rely on volunteers to keep itself running.

They've just finished tying the kid up when the office door flies open and Clark stomps out, a blur of agitated voices spilling out behind him.

"We got a problem," he says, gesturing helplessly at the office. "Liz is outta her fucking mind, and I can't—" He does that gesturing thing again, like words just aren't enough to express anything in life right now. "Professor's trying to talk her down but I don't think it's gonna work."

"Crap," Dawn sighs, straightening, doesn't bother trying to hide the roll of her eyes.

Liz was one of the girls cowering underneath a table (her friend Sara was the other, Jess thinks) with a dead body before everyone relocated, and it didn't take long for her grief to give way to useless hysteria and then pure bitchiness. She's pre-med and painfully anal-retentive. Jess can forgive a lot—everyone has bad days when they're not at their best, and control-freaks are more prone to meltdowns when the shit hits the fan without booking an appointment first—but it's everyone's bad day today and Jess is a tad cranky herself. She doesn't envy Dawn the task ahead.

"Take this," Dawn says, scowling and pushing the rifle at Jess. The scowl's a pretty flimsy cover with her lip trembling the way it is, and Jess gets it, she does. She kind of wants to find a corner and cry the madness away, too, but no one can afford that from either of them.

She gives Dawn a sympathetic pat on the back instead, doesn't bother reminding her that she's completely incompetent when it comes to firearms. She can point it and look menacing and bluff the shit out of anything that comes her way. Sam said she was a natural bullshitter when he taught her poker at that party a few months ago.

_Easy peasy, lemon-squeezy,_ Jess thinks, a bit too gleefully given the circumstances. She might be adjusting to the insanity a little _too _well, but that's not really anything to dwell on. Nothing for it until normality reasserts itself.

Dawn squares her shoulders in that way Jess is coming to be familiar with, and marches off. Clark decides to hang out right where he is, turning to watch from a safe distance, and Jess can sense the others' rising panic all too keenly, tumbling around in her chest like a runaway wrecking ball. Curious, but mostly worried Dawn might need backup, she angles the chair around so she can keep an eye on the sleeping child and see into the office at the same time.

"What are you doing?" Dawn says shrilly as soon as she steps through the door. The crowd makes it difficult to visibly confirm just what's got her hackles up, everyone turning to face her like they got caught scribbling on the walls in crayon.

Jess doesn't see Liz right away, but Sara is saying, "Liz, _please!_ Don't be stupid!" and then there's a loud bang and Liz's incensed voice, "Fucking thing's nailed shut!"

Everyone gets shuffled around as Liz pushes through, short but feisty, all expensive salon-styled hair and neatly pressed slacks. Sara's close at her heels, frazzled and pale with her hands held out and her pleas softer but no less frenzied. "She was my friend, too. Don't you think I know?" but Liz ignores her, ignores the Professor's logic and the group's general terror that she'll call homicidal attention down on all of them if she doesn't knock it off.

The brief hole in the crowd allows Jess to see a chair pushed up underneath the tiny, high window in there, and she guesses Liz is trying to make a break for it.

Clark was right. She's out of her ever-loving mind.

Liz heads for the desk and starts yanking the drawers out.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dawn drawls a little more forcefully, moving forward. Sara fades back to let someone else have a shot at reaching her friend, face slick with snot and tears.

"Looking for a paperweight," Liz mutters.

Dawn moves faster than Jess thought her capable, and the next thing anyone knows Liz's arm is twisted up behind her back, Dawn shoving her out of the office and out into the middle of the break room. The crowd follows the unfolding drama.

"Hey, ow!" Liz yells, belatedly flailing. "Get your goddamn hands off me!" She spins around when Dawn lets go, shaking her arm out indignantly. Before Dawn can get a word out, Liz's focus has shifted to the barricaded doors, eyes lighting up.

"Stop," Dawn snaps, stepping neatly in front of her. She takes a deep breath, and Jess is impressed with how calmly Dawn has handled everyone so far, hasn't completely lost her temper yet, even though it's been clear a few times that she's wanted to bitch and moan like the rest. "Can you just, please, explain to me what you're trying to do?" Dawn says, words measured.

Liz cocks a patronizing brow and says, "Leave," drawing out the vowels like she's talking to a dim-witted child.

"Why?" Dawn tries, not stopping Liz again when she skirts around and starts pulling boxes away to let herself out. Dawn looks like she's got half a mind to just let her go.

"_Why?_" Liz laughs without turning around, a harsh edge to it. "She wants to know why," she mutters to herself. "It's hot in here, for one." She pulls another box down. "I'm tired, everyone smells bad, and, oh yeah! I have to call my best friend's parents and regretfully inform them I watched her fucking_ die_ today!"

Dawn clears her throat, visibly searching for the best approach here, but Liz is still going.

"This morning we were skipping Anatomy to go shopping for bathing suits, because there's this beach thing next week, and we just . We just came for _coffee_!" Liz shouts, like everyone else here lined up for the shooting deaths they ended up serving, and she was the only one out of the loop. Her movements are a little more frantic now, slapping at the stack and letting boxes fall where they may, kicking at the shelves that are too heavy to move. "We could've gone to Starbuck's because it was closer to the mall, but she likes those stupid scone things and no one else makes them right so we had to come here and now she's dead! She's out there and she's—" She stops, breathes deep. "I'm leaving, and that's all. Okay?"

"It's really not," Dawn says, firm but not unkind, edging closer as she talks. "I get it, I do. _Believe me_, I understand how you feel. But you can't—"

"No, you don't!" Liz whirls around and shoves her out of her personal space. Dawn catches herself easily enough, hands up in temporary concession, and stays put for the moment. "You don't fucking understand anything! You're in here playing Father Damien with the psycho baby while the rest of us are just sitting in here waiting to be picked off, and who the hell put you in charge anyway?"

"You're gonna get yourself killed out there!"

Liz's fragile composure is shattering so fast she looks near-rabid. She spins and snatches up a smaller box and hurls it, eyes red-rimmed and wet. Dawn sidesteps just in time, and Jess can't tell if she wants to punch Liz or hug her. Maybe Dawn can't tell, either.

"There's no more shooting!" Liz flings her arms all over the place. "Hasn't been for like an hour! They've sent in SWAT by now! They're probably just doing a final sweep or whatever!"

"She's got a point," Marcus says, hovering at the edge of the gathering and eyeing the doors thoughtfully. Long, garage-band hair and a pretty-boy face, he hasn't said much of anything so far. Mostly seems content lurking and looking really intense. Fine time for him to feel like socializing.

Sara, Jenna, and even Evan (Jess swears if he had a tail it'd be firmly tucked between his legs) start to waffle, shifting around and mumbling about the possibility that Liz could be right, now that she's taken the time to make any kind of point rather than just scrabble at the walls like a trapped tiger. Professor Hightower looks for all the world like he'd love nothing more than to take his one-man survivor party to the roof and wait it out, while Caden, Clark, and Greg can't seem to wrap their heads around all the crazy in their midst.

"You don't _know_ that, though," Jess speaks up, because the dissension is catching quicker than a superbug, and Dawn really doesn't deserve to be fielding this madness all by herself. Liz's gaze snaps over to her, flaring.

"You can't know what's going on any more than the rest of us," Greg adds. "What if they haven't even started and you run into one of those kids? Or if they're sweeping the area, how're they gonna know you're not a shooter? We just need to sit tight and wait for the all-clear, okay?"

"No, I'm done waiting!" Liz shakes her head firmly: that's that, this is _her _cliff's edge, clearly marked, no trespassing. "I just wanna go home and—"

"Holy shit!" Clark shouts, and jumps back like he's been stung.

Jess sees Dawn's face pale and her eyes and mouth go wide with surprise before anyone even fully processes what's happening. The point of a knife protrudes from her gut, blade shiny with blood, the same staining her shirt and spreading too rapidly when the knife recedes, ripped out of her back.

"Oh my god," Caden gasps, hands cupped over her mouth.

Dawn croaks out something unintelligible and falls to her knees, hand groping weakly at the wound.

Jess's stomach flips violently when she realizes her mistake. She let herself get distracted and turned around—one little job and she fucked it right up and let the maybe-dispossessed girl get too far out of her line of sight.

The girl's not dispossessed.

She's standing behind Dawn when she goes down, eyes still black as night. "Exorcisms are such tricky things," she says, letting the knife swing lazily from her fingers like a hypnotist's pocket watch. Wet lines of Dawn's blood slide down the blade, bright red drops splashing slowly to the floor. "One little typo and the whole thing's a wash."

The demon's mouth curls up in a vicious smile, and everything goes to hell again.


End file.
